A club-record 22,329 fans walked through the gates at Providence Park Wednesday night to watch the Portland Thorns put on a show against the Houston Dash.

The first-place Thorns scored with ease against the Dash throughout the first half, netting three goals within the first 20 minutes to put the game to bed. But Portland wasn’t done. The Thorns (7-2-5, 26 points) went on to coast to a 5-0 win over the Dash (4-6-4, 16 points), Portland’s most lopsided victory since 2014.

“I think from the very get-go, we wanted it so badly,” Thorns midfielder Lindsey Horan said. "We were moving for each other, we were playing with purpose and just having fun. It resulted in four goals in the first half.”

There was already added excitement heading into Wednesday’s match, even before Portland started racking up goals. The game marked the homecoming for Portland’s four U.S. Women’s National Team players, who claimed the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup title in July. All nine of the players on Portland’s roster that competed in the World Cup were honored prior to the game.

And those players didn’t disappoint on the field.

Tobin Heath laid the ball off to Horan, who slotted her shot into the corner of the net in the seventh minute. Heath then sent a cross into the box in the 12th minute that bounced all the way through to a wide-open Hayley Raso, who tapped the ball into the net at the back post. Christine Sinclair then converted a penalty kick in the 18th minute after Midge Purce was taken down in the box. A wide-open Raso scored again in the 23rd minute off a pass from Purce.

Heath and Horan represented the U.S. at the World Cup this summer, while Raso competed for Australia and Sinclair represented Canada at her fifth World Cup.

“Having the fans behind us was incredible,” Horan said. “We haven’t all been home together in so long, everyone back. We just wanted to come out and put on a show."

Horan nearly put the icing on the cake when she tried an audacious bicycle kick in the 33rd minute. Her shot was on frame, but Houston goalkeeper Jane Campbell managed to make the jumping save, denying Horan of what could have been the NWSL Goal of the Year.

Houston made two substitutions in the 30th minute, essentially conceding the result as they began to look ahead to their match against Sky Blue Sunday.

While the game was decided before halftime, the second half was a much more evenly-matched affair. Yet, the Thorns still managed to score one more time. Tyler Lussi fired a shot toward goal in the 71st minute that was deflected into the net by Campbell for an own goal.

“It was a fantastic first half of football,” Thorns coach Mark Parsons said. “Then second half, it was about trying to keep standards high, trying to keep control of the game, so we’re not facing shots and chances, but still trying to create more chances.”

With the win, the first-place Thorns moved four points ahead of the second-place North Carolina Courage in the NWSL standings. The crowd at Wednesday’s game was the second-largest in NWSL history. The Orlando Pride set the NWSL single-game attendance record of 23,403 back in 2016.

“Great night for everyone being back together," Parsons said. "After just a couple of training sessions, to see a performance like that was superb.”

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg

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