Portland Thorns End Regular Season With Record Setting Shutout

PORTLAND, OR — When is a 0-0 score actually a win? When it's the Portland Thorns keeping the North Carolina Courage from scoring a goal. That's what happened Saturday night and gave the Thorns their 13th shutout of the season.

That set a record for the most clean sheets in a regular season – 13 shutouts in 24 games.

Getting a shutout was on the minds of the players going into the game.

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"We were playing extra hard [for the record]," centerback Emily Menges said after the game. "We came out strong. We played well. I wish we would have won, but [it was a] good result."

"As usual, the story line: our defense was excellent," Thorns head coach Mark Parsons said. "Fantastic for 99.9 percent of the game. I'm really proud of every player that buys into the culture of us being hard to beat."

The .1 percent that Parsons was probably referring to was likely the goal that the Courage appeared to score a goal early on. It was quickly disallowed by the refs who called offside.

Over the course of the season, the team only allowed 17 goals.

Next step for the Thorns is the NWSL semi-finals.

Their regular season record gave them a bye through the quarters and will now wait for the winner of Chicago Red Stars taking on Gotham FC.

The OL Reign also got a bye and will wait for the winner of the match between Washington and North Carolina.

The winners will then meet in Louisville on Nov. 20.

The championship had been scheduled for Portland but was moved after the players association made the request. Many players were upset with Portland's handling of a sex scandal involving former head coach Paul Riley.