— When used idiomatically, a “junkyard dog” denotes a person with an especially combative demeanor. In the weeks leading up to Saturday’s NWSL championship final, North Carolina Courage manager Paul Riley had taken to branding his squad as “junkyard dogs,” a paean to their self-ascribed tenacity and fight.

The Portland Thorns aggressively wrested that moniker away from North Carolina Saturday for their NWSL championship tilt against the Courage. North Carolina lost two players to injury in the first half in face of Portland’s rambunctious Portland play, the prelude to a 50th minute goal by Lindsay Horan that handed the Thorns the 2017 NWSL championship. It’s Portland second league title and its first since the 2013 inaugural NWSL season.

“It was a battle out there, a tight game without much rhythm until the last twenty minutes,” said Thorns manager Mark Parsons. “What Lindsay has done all year is continue to grow, and she’s the best and biggest in enormous games. I’m thankful the ball dropped to her, and I knew it was only going to end up one place. Tight game—maybe the most beautiful ugly game I’ve ever been a part of. And we won, and glad that’s over.”

During media interviews leading up to Saturday’s championship, the Thorns downplayed any talk of a grudge match against the Courage in the wake of last year’s emotional playoff semifinal loss to the Western New York Flash, the Courage’s antecedent. That denial was debunked early during Saturday’s final, as this match’s feisty tone—and what referee Danielle Chesky would allow—was set in just the second minute when Portland’s Tobin Heath clobbered Taylor Smith from behind, sending Smith to the touch line with an injured right shoulder. Although Smith labored on, she continued to cradle her arm until she couldn’t fight the pain further and came off in the 12th minute. That injury might also jeopardize Smith’s availability for the U.S. national team and its friendlies against South Korea next week.

With Smith already out, Lindsey Horan took down McCall Zerboni in the 14th minute, but like Heath, Horan only earned a stern word and no booking from the referee. In the 36th minute, Heath clattered into Kristen Hamilton, again without a booking. Hamilton injured her leg, requiring Jessica McDonald to enter the match, the Courage’s second injury-related substitution in the opening half. By halftime, the match remained scoreless, and Heath and Hayley Raso had each earned bookings.

When Zerboni was asked post-match if the game might have unfolded differently had Heath been booked in the second minute, Riley interrupted and whispered, “yes.”

“The rules of the game are such that you want the referee to get control of the game,” Zerboni said. “That’s what they’re there for. Otherwise, we’d just take them out and be balls to the wall. I thought [the referee] did her job; I thought some things could have been changed and gotten control of the game earlier with maybe a couple of cards shown. I thought there were a couple of tackles that could have been red cards, honestly. It was clear what [Portland’s] game plan was. I thought we did a good job as a group to stay together, keep our heads about it, and execute our game plan. I’m proud of our team, because we stayed true to what we are and how we play ball.”

“[The Thorns] were physical, might have been more than physical,” Riley added. “I think they had more tackles than passes in the first half. They got into us, and it looked like that was their game plan. Unfortunately, it did knock us out of our rhythm. The referee had a good second half and settled the game down, but she probably should have done that a bit earlier. I’ll give the players a lot of credit—while that was going on with some of the challenges that were a bit ridiculous, to say the least, they hung in there. There was no silly stuff from us, no late stuff from us.

“I’m surprised the way Portland played in the first half, to be honest with you,” Riley continued. “They’re not that type of team. They have some great players, and I’d rather see the players play than kick people. They chose the latter in the first half. At least in the second half the game start; it felt more like a 45-minute game than a 90-minute game.”

Portland found its goal in the 50th minute, when a soaring Emily Sonnett free kick cleared the head of Courage center back Abby Dahlkemper before bouncing between defenders Abby Erceg and Jaelene Hinkle to an unmarked Lindsey Horan. Horan settled the sphere, then buzzed the ear of Courage goalkeeper Katelyn Rowland to give the Thorns the ultimate 1-0 game-winner.

Despite its parabolic arch, Sonnet said there was design behind her free kick.

“That’s something I’ve struggled with throughout the year, just keeping it simple and hitting the weak side and hopefully getting a knock down or redirect,” Sonnett said. “It ended up working out that Lindsay got on the end of it, but I think putting it in the best place possible for the highest success ended up working out in our favor.”

In the 66th minute, Horan took down Sam Mewis with a virtual headlock, yet earned no booking. By the 75th minute, with the score tight and the fouls piling up on both sides, the respective supporter groups, separated by an empty section in Orlando City Stadium’s “Wall” endzone, were hurling invective at each other.

With the Courage’s lineup neutered from the first half’s bloodbath, North Carolina’s attack found tough sledding against a Thorns defense that allowed a league-low 20 goals during the regular season. In the end, the Courage outshot Portland 16-4, but the Thorns’ defense bent but never broke.

“Today, we showed a resilience not give up space in areas Carolina wanted,” Parsons said. “We limited them in areas where they build a lot of goals from. We made them go to new places.”

In response to a question essentially asking whether he ordered the code red, Parson couched his squad as the victims of the match’s rough play, before offering that his team’s pugnacious play was the product of pent-up aggression.

“I thought Tobin received the two worst challenges in the game—the first one was horrific,” Parson said. “It was always going to be a physical game. Carolina has built an identity around being physical, being fast and putting pressure on people … No, there hasn’t been any directive [to play especially physical]. We talked about it at the beginning of the year, but we haven’t talked about it in this week or pregame.

"We’ve held these players back from touching each other in training for two weeks. Going into the semis, it was almost non-contact soccer, because it’s worse than what we saw tonight. These players know one thing to do. Going into the Chicago regular season game, they were smashing and hitting each other, pressing in the Wednesday 11v11 as much as the game. We learned we can’t do that. If there’s a reason we had an extra spice tonight, it’s because they haven’t felt contact for two weeks in training.”

The Courage early match injuries were compounded by the fact that it was already playing without attacking midfielder Debinha, who dislocated her left elbow during last weekend’s semifinal win over the Chicago Red Stars.

“I thought we played a brilliant game, to be honest,” Riley said. “Obviously, the two early substitutions changed the formation a little bit. I give the players an awful lot of credit. They hung in there. We battled and outplayed them—I thought we were the better team for a good 75-80 minutes … You don’t always get your just rewards. I think we were a little unlucky in the end. But we move on, and there’s no finish line for the group.”

In the end, this year’s championship served two functions. It was redemption for the Thorns, a return to the championship perch for a worthy team and arguably the league’s flagship franchise. It also sets the stage for a continuing rivalry between two clubs poised to possibly rule the NWSL roost for the foreseeable future.

“It’s a final,” Parsons offered. “It’s a final with the two highest energy teams in the league who love to get into it.”

“Not getting the result, not getting the silverware is painful,” Zerboni said. “It hurts deep in the gut. We should hold our heads high. We have a lot of be proud of this year. That’s not just from today, but every day. We improved every week, every month. [My teammates] are great people and a great group of players … It hurts, but here’s always another shot.”

BOX SCORE

LINEUPS

NC: Rowland, Hinkle, Dahlkemper, Erceg, T. Smith (Doniak, 12’), Zerboni, Mewis, Hamilton (McDonald, 39’), O'Sullivan (Ochs, 87’), Hatch, L. Williams

POR: Franch, Reynolds, Sonnett, Menges, Klingenberg, Henry (Long, 90 + 3’), Horan, Sykes (Brynjarsdóttir, 54’), Sinclair, Heath, Raso (Nadim, 69’)

GOALS

NC: ---

POR: Horan, 50’ (Sonnett)

CAUTIONS

NC: ---

POR: Heath, 41’; Raso, 45’; Brynjarsdottir (72’)

EJECTIONS

NC: ---

POR: ---

ATTENDANCE: 8,124