All season long it's been a tale of two halves for the Missouri Reign, and that trend continued Friday night in the 2-0 loss to FC Pride.

In most every game this season, the Reign (2-0-4) seem to struggle for a majority of the first half, only to pick it up and have success in the second half. From the start of the first half, the Pride (4-1-0) asserted their dominance, pressuring the Reign's back line and thus prevented the Reign from producing many quality counter attacks. Had it not been for two unconventional goals in the first half, the Pride would've been held scoreless.

In the 22nd minute the Pride scored from what was likely an errant cross. It went in the net in the top left corner, so there was not much goalie Natalie Allison could do about it. The other goal came in the 35th minute. Pride's Breece Bass just tapped the ball into the net off a deflection. Most of the shots FC took resulted in easy saves for Allison, as evident by five shots on goal on 68% possession for the Pride in the first half.

The Reign kept trying to complete short passes in the middle of the field but they didn't work often enough because the Pride continuously collapsed on the ball, resulting in turnovers. Good things tend to happen to a team when it pressures the ball, and the Pride were rewarded with two goals because of it. Reign coach Dakota Acock knows the struggle his team has in first halves.

"I think every team in every season has a mountain to climb," Acock said. "Ours this season has been the way we start games, we just cannot get on the front foot. Our girls are working hard at it as well as our staff so that is something that I expect to see solved pretty soon."

The second half was a completely different story. Immediately, the Reign was the more aggressive team, picking up multiple yellow cards along the way, and played with a bigger sense of urgency. At the 60 minute mark they were gifted a huge advantage. Reign's Holland Hawkins and Prides' Dominique Butler fought for a 50/50 ball. Butler was called for a foul and the two got into a shoving match. The ref awarded both parties caution yellows. But, Butler kept talking to the ref, and the ref retaliated with a red. This gave the Reign an 11 on 10 advantage for the rest of the game and was a "burst of energy". Acock praised his team for staying level headed in that moment.

"Any time you can stay composed through a chaotic moment and keep your cool, good things typically happen," Acock said. "I give a lot of credit to our girls for making sure that they stay aggressive, but didn't go to the point where they lost their head completely."

From then on, the Reign completely dominated, having many quality looks and not allowing any quality chances for the Pride.

In the 73rd minute, Georgia Pardalos was one-on-one with Pride goalie Peyton Hull and had the best look to that point. However, she shot it just wide left of the post. Throughout the half the Reign couldn't win the 50/50 balls in the box consistently enough, especially on corners, which hurt their scoring chances.

With the outcome of the game already determined, the Reign had one more good look at the end. The last touch of the game was a cross by Joya Azzi to Danielle Buker, but Buker mishit the ball on a wide open net. This was crucial because the point differential matters in this league, and even more so for a team trying to stay in the fight for a playoff spot.

"Sometimes things just don't go our way and you've gotta be able to overcome that," said Acock on the unlucky moments in the game.

The Reign next play a friendly against KC Current II at 6:30 p.m. Monday at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. With no more divisional road games left this season for the Reign, their next conference matchup is against Lou Fusz Athletic (4-1-0), which defeated Junction FC 5-0 on Saturday, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at R. Marvin Owens Field.