— Anything can happen in a one-off playoff game, even for a team that’s won three consecutive NWSL Shields.

The North Carolina Courage were the dominant team by far on Sunday in their NWSL semifinal match against Megan Rapinoe and Reign FC.

But facing a defensive-minded opponent and a goalkeeper standing on her head, it took 88 minutes to find a goal, only for the home team to give it up mere minutes later.

However, the Courage stepped up to the challenge during extra time, scoring three unanswered goals to best the Reign 4-1 and advance to the NWSL Championship next Sunday.

“I thought we dominated from start to finish, to be honest with you,” said Courage manager Paul Riley. “We were really good in the second half and overtime. The midfield was tremendous in the second half and into overtime and created a ton of chances. We should have put the game away a lot earlier. We thought [the Reign] would sit deep and they did. When you give up a late goal like that it can affect the psyche of the team. I told them at the end of the game that this was a mighty challenge with the hole we put ourselves in. They only get better by being in those type of holes and they showed a lot of character in overtime.”

“We’re a typical away team when it comes to North Carolina,” said Reign FC manager Vlatko Andonovski. “We knew we had to defend and be organized and disciplined. That’s the only way we would have had a chance. At the end, we made it interesting.”

While North Carolina rolled out their full-strength lineup, the Reign, stymied by injuries all season, boasted a formidable front line but were missing defenders Megan Oyster and Rebecca Quinn. Starting full back Theresa Nielsen also began on the bench and didn’t enter the match until overtime.

Always the aggressors, the Courage nearly struck in just the second minute.

Lynn Williams got around Reign right back Stephanie Cox and delivered a cross that Crystal Dunn one-timed in front of goal, but Reign goalkeeper Casey Murphy parried away the shot and Debinha’s follow flew over the crossbar.

In the 19th minute, Williams drove into the penalty arc, then sent a diagonal through ball to Dunn, but Murphy was again there to snuff out the danger.

The Reign’s first shot didn’t come until the 27th minute, when Megan Rapinoe delivered a harmless liner to Courage keeper Stephanie Labbe.

The Courage came closest to netting a goal at the stroke of halftime when a Jaelene Hinkle cross into the goalmouth landed at Williams’ feet, but her redirection skimmed off the right post. North Carolina outshot the Reign 9-3 for the half and held early 60 percent possession, but the Reign made life difficult for North Carolina’s midfield distribution and appeared poised to pounce on a Courage miscue.

“They’re pretty tall and pretty aggressive,” Dunn said about the Reign’s midfield. “Playing against two no. 6s is harder for me and Debinha when we know we’re matched up.”

In the 54th minute, a nice Courage buildup gave Williams a shot on goal, but Murphy was in position to stone her shot. Jessica McDonald had her own attempt three minutes later, but Murphy again made the save. McDonald got in behind the Reign back line in the 60th minute, but her header caromed off the crossbar.

If North Carolina was knocking at the door the opening half, they began the second stanza practically banging it down. But the Reign defenders and especially Murphy held fast until the Courage finally found the net starting in the 87th minute, when Lauren Barnes was whistled for a handball off a Williams cross.

Heather O’Reilly, playing her final season as a pro player, stepped to the spot and sent Murphy the wrong way, converting her PK to give North Carolina the apparent game-winner and a storybook ending.

“I’ve been pretty solid taking penalties in my training, so I knew that I was first up take it,” O’Reilly said. “I thought it would have been enough to seal it … It would have been fun if my penalty was the winner, but what can you do?”

“Who better than Heather O’Reilly to step up and take a penalty?”, Riley said. “She held her nerve. We talk about Rapinoe having ice in her veins; I think Heather has ice in her veins, too. I thought that would get us over the line.”

However, in the last throes of added time, the Reign found an equalizer. Celia Jimenez Delgado served a ball to the feet of Ifeoma Onumonu, who turned to face some loose Courage defending and slipped a shot past Labbe to knot the score at 1-1 heading into extra time.

Riley went with his starting XI through all of regulation time and didn’t make his first substitute until the 96th minute.

“I felt that if we get into overtime and they did score, we have four subs in overtime,” Riley explained. “It was a very difficult game to go into, especially after HAO scored. We felt we could just keep going with what we had and adjust our shape a little bit. We gave one shot away and it went in, in all fairness. It wasn’t conscious going into the game … When the game was going on, we felt we were good to go.”

The Courage had shifted to a more defensive formation after O’Reilly’s goal, and that appeared to take the team out of rhythm. The unexpected equalizer also took the air out of the crowd of 7,422. As the teams planned for 30 minutes of extra time, Riley’s message to his squad was to get back to basics.

“When they came over, the message wasn’t tactical,” Riley said. “We got back to our original shape and we just got after them. I just told them to go at it and do what we do best. Put [the Reign] under pressure for 10-15 minutes and let’s see what they’re made of.”

The crowd’s fervor returned in the 99th minute, when Debinha, after drawing a foul 22 yards from goal, curled a free kick into the upper 90 to retake the lead at 2-1, on her birthday.

“At the moment, Jaelene asked me, ‘What are we going to do?’ I said, ‘[Murphy] is a big goalie, so I’m going to wait and see what she’s going to do.’ She cheated a little bit to our right side, so and I was like I can just hit it near post with power. And it happened.”

“It was sick,” Dunn added. “I told Debs all day, it’s your birthday and you have to get a goal. She was all, “No, no, no.’ I said, ‘It’s coming, and you better one, actually!”

“Debinha’s been working on that every day for eight months,” Riley said. “She drives me nuts because she never puts it in during the game like she did today. So all those shots she takes after practice and leaves me out on the field for an extra 15 minutes, it was well worth it.’

With a winded Reign now chasing another equalizer, North Carolina pushed their advantage to 3-1 in the 105th minute, when Barnes redirected a Kristen Hamilton cross at her goal, off Murphy, and over the goal line for a Reign own goal.

“We were knocking on the door all day,” O’Reilly said. “You started to naturally have that feeling like, god, it’s just not falling for us. But we stayed resilient and that shows a lot of character in the team.”

The wheels fully came off for the Reign three minutes later. Sam Mewis got her noggin on a Reign clearance and headed it forward to an unmarked Dunn, who took a touch and slotted her shot past Murphy for the final 4-1 scoreline.

“A ball was cleared out to Sam, and Sam does what she does best,” Dunn said. “She won the ball, and I was in open space. I just thought, let me hit low and hard because Casey’s pretty good at stopping.”

Murphy finished with 11 saves, but ultimately the pressure of 34 Courage shots, 14 of them on target, proved too much.

“They broke us down and executed, especially late in the game,” Murphy said. “They’re a very tough opponent, up top especially. They got the better half today.”

The Reign came in with a game plan that nearly worked. After the match, Andonovski was effusive in his praise for the Courage.

“They have so many weapons, so many good players, so many things they do well that it’s hard to take everything away,” Andonovski said. “We were calculating what would be the best thing to do in terms of what do we give them. We knew we had to give them something, and I thought for the most part we did a decent job.

“They’re great. They’re awesome. The best team in the league, hands down.”

The Courage now advance to their third consecutive NWSL Championship, four if you count their league title in 2016 when they were the Western New York Flash before moving to North Carolina.

North Carolina will host the Chicago Red Stars, who defeated the Portland Thorns later on Sunday. Despite the Courage’s perennial league dominance, the Red Stars have proven to be their nemesis. North Carolina has beaten Chicago only once in the regular season, but North Carolina has also ousted the Red Stars in the NWSL semifinals the past two seasons.

North Carolina gets to host the final in search of back-to-back league titles. Riley says they’re already ready.

“I told them I had good news and bad news,” Riley said. “The good news is you’re in the championship. The bad news is you’ve got practice at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning. They want to get back on the field again and started training tomorrow. We have a lot of momentum. We’ve won eight of nine games and in really good form. As long as the crowd comes and supports us and gets behind us, we’ll do well next week.”

BOX SCORE

LINEUPS

NC: Labbe, Hinkle, Erceg, Dahlkemper, O'Reilly, O'Sullivan (Zerboni, 102’), Mewis, Debinha, Dunn, McDonald (Hamilton, 96’), L. Williams (Spetsmark, 112’)

RFC: Murphy, Cox (Groom, 90’), McNabb, Barnes, Catley, Long, Yanez, Balcer (Jimenez Delgado, 63’), Jenkins (Nielsen, 105’), Taylor (Onumonu, 80’), Rapinoe

GOALS

NC: O’Reilly, 88’ (PK); Debinha, 99’ (FK); Barnes, 105+1’ (OG)

RFC: Onumonu, 90+2’ (Delgado)

CAUTIONS

NC: ---

RFC: Long, 50’

EJECTIONS

NC: ---

RFC: ---

ATTENDANCE: 7,422