Sarah Gorden, ACFC Defender
Overall thoughts on the match:
“It is frustrating. Usually if you look at coming into Portland playing here is probably, besides coming into our stadium, the toughest place to play. And so you would think going in here and getting a tie is not a terrible result, but it sucks. We had it. We were up two different times in the game.”
“I thought we got the better of them. I thought we played well and it's just so frustrating, the way we gave away a goal in the end. We can't give away three goals, we can't give away two goals every game.”
“So we have things we have to clean up, but there's of course a bright side. We have a lot of potential.”
On refocusing to play OL Reign on Wednesday:
“Three game weeks are tough, especially where you're on the road for multiple games. But, it's just taking the highlights and also working on the things that we need to change. There were some real valuable lessons on how to close out a game.”
On their strategy after halftime:
“We thought they were going to come out with some fire, so we were ready for that. We wanted to bring the ball down and we changed the way that we were pressing in the second half, which really worked for us. It was difficult for them at times to build off of goal kicks, which was good. I felt like our press was really solid for the first time.”
“I've been at a club before that has a great back line and a great team and gave up a lot of goals in the beginning of the season and then hit a turning point and things changed.”
Freya Coombe, ACFC Head Coach
On overall thoughts on the match:
“It was a good game between two competitive teams. I’m disappointed with the final result but really happy with the way we were able to come back into the game, especially when down 2-1.”
“The team showed a lot of grit to get themselves back in, there was some class in those set pieces. Overall, they were just competitive throughout.”
On positive takeaways from tonight’s draw:
“A big piece is this year compared to last year we've gone down in games and we've been able to come back, which is fantastic in terms of the mentality of the players. We still need to be more clinical in the final third if we're looking at the shots that we've had on target and our xG created.”
“We expected more from the possession and the touches that we've had in the opposition penalty boxes. Our ability to then play throughout the duration of games. It was tough being a player down at the end, with Paige [Nielsen] coming out and then with them putting Bixby up.”
On what was working for the offense tonight:
“We had some good movement at times. Being able to threaten and seem to make runs beyond their back line was stretching them at times. There were a few times Alyssa got isolated 1-on-1, either with Menges or with Hubley, but we didn't quite get the ball into the right space which is work to improve upon.”
“We did look threatening and we need to do a little bit better at being able to convert those opportunities in the possession of the final third into shots on target.”
