Crystal Dunn’s latest heroics have her back in the spotlight — and back in the NWSL title game

WASHINGTON — Arguably no fan base has suffered more empathetic pain from the spotlighting of alleged abuse in women’s soccer than that of the Portland Thorns.

Throngs of the Rose City’s red-clad faithful have taken in every reported word, every claim and counter-claim, and every piece of evidence presented by investigations into their beloved club. And many have reacted accordingly, heaping scorn on ownership and now-former executives for knowing of Paul Riley’s alleged scandals but not adequately acting on them.

Yet through all the anger and anguish, most of those fans still have clung to the joy their team can provide in a sport that gives moments like no other. And this past Sunday, they got one of the all-time moments the NWSL has ever seen.

Portland was tied with San Diego, 1-1, with 90 seconds of second-half stoppage time to go in their NWSL playoff semifinal. The Thorns had a corner kick, and San Diego didn’t do a good job of clearing it. The ball bounced to Crystal Dunn, who took a mighty swing of her right foot and launched the ball into the top corner of the net.

» READ MORE: Portland and Kansas City advance to the NWSL title game

Cue an explosion of noise and color the likes of which even venerable Providence Park has rarely seen: Dunn racing away to celebrate, the fans leaping out of their seats, the roar shaking the century-old wooden rafters above the north end stands. The goal won the game, and sent Portland on to the nation’s capital for Saturday’s prime-time final against the Kansas City Current (8 p.m., CBS3, Paramount+).

“I hit the ball cleanly to the point where I knew when it left my foot, I at least thought it was going to be a good strike,” Dunn told a crowd of reporters at a media day for the big game. “And I think as I saw it soar into the goal, for a moment, I felt a sense of relief — like, whoa, thank goodness we scored, yay. And also for myself.”

Go find the goal on YouTube or a social media site of your choice — it’ll be on all of them. You don’t have to be a Thorns fan to savor it.

Watch it for the quality of Dunn’s strike and the frenzy of the celebrations. Then play it again, but this time with your eyes closed. Just listen to the noise.

It was as if Dunn blasted a hole in a dam on the Willamette River, and all the pent-up emotions of the last year came flooding out. And it was so fitting that a player whose career has been defined by joy — and a whole lot of winning — did the honors.

But it wasn’t just that. Dunn was on the field 156 days after giving birth to her first child, Marcel. Her return to action after pregnancy (helped by Thorns head athletic trainer Pierre Soubrier being her husband) was so fast that Thorns manager Rhian Wilkinson joked after the game about having “food in my fridge older than that.”

Wilkinson was still just as excited on Thursday.

“That’s why we love the game, right?” she said. “Those pure reactions to moments like that, they’re storybook endings. You just don’t get many of those in your career as players.”

» READ MORE: Crystal Dunn returned to the U.S. national team three months after giving birth

And to top it off, there was a collective knowledge in Portland that the goal could have been greeted by a far quieter scene. In the weeks before the game, some Thorns fans talked openly of a boycott so the front office couldn’t profit from their passion. The Yates report named principal owner Merritt Paulson as one of multiple powerful men who allegedly knew of Riley’s abuses but did not act on them.

The tide changed when veteran goalkeeper Bella Bixby spoke on the players’ behalf and asked fans to show up to support them. A few days later, the team announced ticket proceeds would be donated to local charities.

The fans responded: 22,035 in all, the Thorns’ largest ever crowd for a playoff game that wasn’t a final. Early in the day, they had a mass protest calling on Paulson to sell; a few hours later, they had a celebration for the ages. This will be Portland’s first championship game since 2018, and Dunn’s first as a Thorn after winning titles with North Carolina in ‘18 and ‘19.

“I’ve been through some incredible games at Providence Park, but, honestly, that was the most engaged and lively and loud and fun crowd that I’ve ever played in front of,” said Thorns veteran Meghan Klingenberg, a longtime friend and teammate of Dunn’s. “It really felt like they were just pouring their hearts and souls into it like we were.”

» READ MORE: U.S. Soccer promises action after Yates investigation details abuse and sexual coercion in NWSL

As CBS Sports Network broadcasters Jenn Hildreth and Aly Wagner called the moment, they knew to do the thing all good soccer broadcasters do: let the crowd do the talking. They limited their commentary as the players celebrated, with producer Mackenzie Pearce and director Gage Tillotson overseeing the cameras.

“That was one of those moments — you know when it happens that you’re going to remember [it] for a long time,” Hildreth said. “I did think for a half-second, was there more I wanted to say, more I wanted to capture. I just saw her face and I heard that crowd, and thought, ‘There is nothing more for me to say here.’”

Hildreth added that for her, it was “impossible to separate Crystal from that moment, five months after giving birth.”

And it was impossible to separate one of the game’s great stars from another page of the history books.

“My personal goal was always to get back to this game,” Dunn said, “and doing it in the same year that I gave birth was icing on the cake.”