It would have been easy, even understandable, for Crystal Dunn to let disappointment take the reins. She could have convinced herself that she had done her part. She could have dropped her head and wallowed in the easy comfort of what might have been.

Of course, Dunn wouldn't be the lead in the second act of the soccer summer had she done that.

When Washington Spirit teammate Christine Nairn launched a ball that covered 45 yards in the air and another 30 yards on the bounce in injury time in a recent game against Chicago, Dunn could have blanched. Come to think of it, she did. Exhausted by 92 minutes on the field in the depth of a Midwestern summer and deflated by a late Red Stars goal that tied the score minutes earlier, she watched Nairn launch the ball over her head toward only open field and silently questioned her friend's judgment. But then Dunn turned and chased. She ran so fast and made up so much ground that the defender who had had a 20-yard head start on Dunn had no choice but to play the ball out of bounds rather than risk controlling it.

What came next fed highlights. Dunn threw the ball to teammate Diana Matheson, who quickly played it back. Dunn dribbled parallel to the goal and sensed the defenders were content to shadow her on that path rather than force the issue. So she shot. It wasn't the most elegant blast she ever authored, legs sliding out from under her as she stretched to make contact, but it rolled at an almost leisurely pace toward the far post and beyond the keeper's outstretched arms for yet another goal that won yet another game.

Instead of a draw that would have left the standings unchanged as the regular season nears its end, Washington claimed all three points with the win and pulled level with Chicago for second place. All the result of her sixth game-winning goal, yes, but also the 50-yard sprint that won field position in the first place.

"That's the sport," Dunn said. "You literally never know what's going to come of a play, so you kind of have to put your all into every play because you really don't know. I think that was a prime example of me just being really optimistic in that moment and thinking there is still time for one more play, so hopefully it works out."

Opportunity knocked at one door; disappointment beckoned toward another. Hers was a choice of which to answer.

Widely if unofficially considered the first player on the wrong side of the United States World Cup bubble, unlucky No. 24 when coach Jill Ellis filled out the roster of 23 players who went on to win the title in Canada, Dunn faced that same dilemma on a grander scale this summer. That Washington will make the playoffs and is in a three-way race with Chicago and FC Kansas City for the right to host a semifinal is one indication of which knock she heeded. Another is that the MVP race is as much of a foregone conclusion as that first place Seattle Reign FC will host the other semifinal.

With three games still to play, Dunn leads the league with 13 goals. Only one player in the league's three seasons ever scored more in a single season, none in so few games.

Crystal Dunn is widely believed to have been the last player cut from the United States roster for the 2015 World Cup. Grant Halverson/Getty Images

A player versatile enough to have excelled as a center back in the U-20 World Cup, attacking midfielder on an NCAA champion and outside back on the senior national team, all while once declaring outside midfielder as her favorite position, she is dominating NWSL teams in the new role of the No. 9, the central striker pushed high up the field.

"I have not seen a player in this world who can do what Crystal can do when she has the ball at her feet," Washington coach Mark Parsons said, conceding only to the assertion that he hadn't seen Marta in person. "She is a very, very special talented player. And I think that if it continues over the next two or three years, we're going to see one of the most talented players the country has ever had."

Four months ago she was the player her country, in the form of the national team, didn't have room for. A part of the initial roster for World Cup qualifying and a player who made seven starts for the United States in 2013 and 2014, with most of those assignments during the tenure of Tom Sermanni, Dunn was replaced after she sustained a knee injury in training prior to the opening qualifier in Kansas City last October (thereby opening the door for Julie Johnston's inclusion and meteoric rise). After recovering from surgery, Dunn traveled with the team to Brazil in December but didn't play in any of four games. Her lone appearance this year came as a late substitute against England in February.