Mere minutes after her North Carolina Courage lost last Saturday’s NWSL championship in Orlando, Fla., Sam Mewis was asked what most excites her when she thinks about the future of the Courage.

“Winning,” Mewis responded without hesitation. “Next year, I think we’re going to be back with a vengeance. It starts now. I’m ready to get prepared for next season already. I’m already hungry for it. This hurts a lot.”

"I think next year we're going to be back with a vengeance." @sammymewy is already hungry for next year . #NWSLChampionship | #NCvPOR pic.twitter.com/cneuT87Zvd — NWSL (@NWSL) October 14, 2017

The pain Mewis and her Courage felt from their loss to the Portland Thorns was both physical and emotional. The Thorns’ pugnacious play accompanied the first-half departures of Taylor Smith and Kristen Hamilton due to injuries. Mewis, McCall Zerboni, and Makenzy Doniak all took hard tumbles to the turf. Ultimately, a blown set piece gave Portland the game-winning goal and their second NWSL title.

“Everyone uses the word disappointment, but [we’re] disappointed only in the outcome,” says Courage President and General Manager Curt Johnson. “I thought our group did everything but score goals. On seven or eight out of 10 days, we win the game. So, it’s heartbreaking in some ways, but it’s also inspiring in other ways … Credit to Portland—they’re very good. We saw what they did in the semifinals to an excellent Orlando team. Super talented, no doubt. But clearly, if we had been able to stay healthy in that game, I think the outcome is different.”

The final was a sour coda to an otherwise standout debut season for the Courage. The team won the NWSL Supporters Shield and ranked fourth in the league in average per game attendance during the regular season (4,389). Manager Paul Riley won NWSL coach of the year, and Ashley Hatch was honored as the league’s rookie of the year. Mewis is a finalist for the league’s most valuable player. Four players—Mewis, Smith, Abby Dahlkemper, and Lynn Williams—earned multiple national team call-ups.

With a 2016 NWSL championship (as the Western New York Flash) and 2017 Supporters Shield already under their belt, the Courage are especially situated to continue their league success. The core of the roster is still maturing, both individually and as a team. Only three players on this year’s roster will be 30 years or older by next training camp: Zerboni, Jessica McDonald, and Nora Holstad.

Meanwhile, the core of Mewis, Smith, Dahlkemper, Williams, and Jaelene Hinkle will all be 25 years or younger. The team has an off-season without the upheaval of relocation to finetune their roster through player acquisitions and the 2018 NWSL draft. Moreover, three 2017 college draftees—Darian Jenkins, Claire Wagner, and Jaycie Johnson—missed this year with injuries, but all three trained at varying intervals with the Courage and look to be in camp next spring hoping to make the squad.

At the same time, there is always turnover due to varying circumstances. The extent of Hamilton’s knee injury, suffered during Saturday’s championship match, isn’t yet known.

Speaking with media the day before the final, Holstad admitted she was seriously considering retirement. And Sabrina D’Angelo, the MVP of the 2016 NWSL championship and a Canadian national teamer, admits that behind her effervescent exterior, this year was difficult after she lost her starting spot to Katelyn Rowland.

“Everything that happened last year, it was such a great year for me with the Olympics and NWSL championship,” D’Angelo says. “Everything that could go right went right. Coming into this year, I put a lot of pressure on myself. I had this expectation that everything needed to be perfect because of what I did last year. The pressure I put on myself wasn’t healthy.”

“[There was] definitely a lot of learning and self-reflecting, having to look inside and learning a lot about myself as a person,” D’Angelo continues. “Obviously, I started the year playing and that changed halfway through the year. It took a lot of looking inside, getting my confidence back and figuring out who I was as a person … I understand why I was pulled. It was a matter of taking responsibility for it and accepting it … I feel much better now than I did back then.”

A key component to continuing the Courage’s run is the return of Riley. The longtime gaffer engenders the devotion of his players and is, in many ways, the linchpin to their commanderie. Riley signed a one-year deal prior to the 2017 season, and while contract talks were put off until after the season, Johnson says finalizing a new contract with Riley is a “front-burner issue now.”

“Paul and I agreed at the beginning of the season to just to take it for the year and see how things went,” Johnson explains. “Clearly, it went really well. We’ve never worked together, he was coming to a new market, and the timing was very tight. In my mind, that season couldn’t have gone any better from the coaching standpoint. It speaks volumes that [Riley] was named coach of the year—I didn’t really think there needed to be a vote. On his side, I think he would say he’s had one of the best years of his career in terms of his enjoyment of the group and the support he got from the organization. He and I will sit down in the comings days/week or two and assess things, as we do every season, and I’m sure on both sides work to get a deal done and hopefully be able to announce something here shortly.”

Off the field, both Johnson and Courage owner Steve Malik say this year exceeded their expectations, particularly given their truncated off-season. The sale of the Flash was finalized in early January, and three days after the press conference in Cary to introduce the Courage, club officials were in Los Angeles to participate in the NWSL college draft.

“On the team side, we had just enough time to pull it together,” Johnson says. “What we didn’t have enough time was to market the team and properly sell the team, specifically in the area of launching season tickets sales in January as opposed to late September or early October like we’re doing in preparation for the 2018 season.”

There was a learning curve for both the club staff and the market, which went from 16 home games for just the North Carolina FC (formerly Carolina RailHawks) to 28 regular season matches between NCFC and the Courage, not including international friendlies, U.S. Open Cup ties, and the NWSL playoff semifinal.

“There were some weekends where there was tired marketplace,” Johnson says. “But overall, the Courage tide lifted the overall boat. There was more money spent on pro soccer in the Triangle in 2017, specifically more money spent on soccer tickets and merchandise than ever before, and that’s positive for the business of soccer. I think we can built on that next year with a longer runway.”

“In general, we did not make money, but the investment [in the Courage] and how it fits with the other investments that we’ve been making made a lot of sense,” Malik says. “With the fact that we had only six weeks to bring the club up [in 2017], we expect to have a lot better financial results being able to engage sponsors earlier and do a more robust season ticket sale campaign.”

One area the club hopes to expand is cross-marketing between the men’s and women’s teams. The club has already begun offering 12-ticket flex passes for 2018 that can be redeemed for either North Carolina FC or North Carolina Courage games, something that wasn’t possible this year. Johnson also hopes to integrate both teams into sponsorship and local television broadcasting deals for next year.

The Courage continues to hold the unique position of being the only NWSL team owned by someone who also owns a U.S. lower division men’s pro soccer team. Malik says he has fielded inquiries from other non-Major League Soccer men’s team owners asking about his initial NWSL foray.

“They have asked me that, and I’ve been extremely positive on NWSL,” Malik says. “It doesn’t fit every situation; I don’t think if you’re drawing 1,200 fans it’s going to solve your problems. But if you have a robust organization, like us, you’re able to leverage some of that.”

One game the Courage would like to add to their WakeMed Soccer Park schedule next year is the NWSL championship. The league currently holds its championship final at a predetermined site, typically announced each spring. The average attendance over the five NWSL championship finals beginning in 2013 is 8,605, including 8,124 last Saturday in Orlando. It’s an attendance that would show well in the 10,000-capacity Sahlen’s Stadium in Cary.

Last week in Orlando, NWSL Managing Director Amanda Duffy, a North Carolina native, said the league has not officially decided if the 2018 playoffs final will be held at a predetermined site, or if the league would explore such other options as awarding hosting rights to the higher seeded team.

“Our teams are continuing to develop,” Duffy said, “and the stadiums that we have in the league are continuing to be more along the lines of Orlando City Stadium, and you look at this year we have Sahlen’s Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park, another good venue that would be a great setting for a championship, and others in the league that would provide the right environment and all the right resources for the teams.”

If the NWSL holds the 2018 championship at a predetermined site, as many observers expect, the Courage has already enthusiastically thrown its hat in the ring.

“Absolutely, we are interested in hosting as a predetermined site,” Johnson says. “We’ve expressed that to the league. Steve [Malik] is very passionate about that. I think we have a great marketplace that would rally behind that type of event. We’ve done very well with women’s and men’s College Cups, and a U.S. women’s national team game coming up on Sunday that sold out in a matter of hours … I don’t see anything that would keep us from continuing to push hard for a championship game in 2018.”

Malik confirms his interest in hosting the NWSL championship, though he appears to channel the focus of Sam Mewis in stating his reason.

“I have told NWSL that we’d be interested in hosting a championship game,” Malik says. “I think it would be a home game.”