Sam Coffey of the Portland Thorns takes a free kick during a 2022 Women’s International Cup semifinals match against C.F. Monterrey at Providence Park in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022.Sean Meagher/The Oregonian

Riding an 11-game unbeaten streak in NWSL play and returning to their regular-season schedule after two losses in the Women’s International Champions Cup, the Portland Thorns travel to face the North Carolina Courage on Wednesday. Sitting atop the league standings at 7-1-7 (28 points), the Thorns seek three points on the road for the second consecutive NWSL match.

The Oregonian/OregonLive has Three Points to watch for the Thorns vs. Courage:

The Thorns will need to rotate their lineup to keep all of their starters fresh for a game against the San Diego Wave on Saturday. Plenty of starters played near or a full 90 minutes Saturday against Chelsea in the WICC third-place game, meaning it’s likely Portland trots out more reserves against the Courage.

Portland will need more out of its reserves, however, than it got in an upset loss to C.F. Monterrey. This game has more serious implications and that group has plenty of film to watch to see where things went wrong in the WICC, so a more consistent outing is likely in the cards.

Players like Hannah Betfort, Yazmeen Ryan, Morgan Weaver and others should play larger roles than usual on the attack.

Portland reverted to old habits the last time it played North Carolina. The Thorns had a strong first half, building a 2-0 lead at the break, but they surrendered three second-half goals on the way to a 3-3 draw. This came after a heroic effort from Sophia Smith to retake the lead with her second goal in the 77th minute.

A hallmark of Portland’s unbeaten streak has been its ability to play a full 90 minutes with minimal hiccups, unlike early in the season and in the Challenge Cup ,when the team typically had two diverging halves. Playing a full 90 minutes of quality soccer on Wednesday should result in victory against a North Carolina team sitting near the bottom of the NWSL standings.

It’s been the greatest focus of the past several weeks: Portland has a lot of games to play in August. It just played two in quick succession in the WICC and has a Wednesday-Saturday slate this week in NWSL play, beginning with the Courage and ending with San Diego. That’s taxing even with a significant rotation of the lineup.

Pressure builds given how tight the standings are, too. Portland is in first with 28 points, but San Diego and Houston both have 28 points as well (albeit in two more games played than the Thorns). Getting a win in North Carolina gives Portland some extra breathing room heading into Saturday’s matchup with the Wave. At worst — if tired legs get the best of the Thorns and San Diego beats them at home — they’d be right back where they started at the beginning of the week: on top.

Portland vs. North Carolina kicks off at 4 p.m. Wednesday (streaming on Paramount+).

SCHOOL SUPPLY DRIVE ON TAP

The Timbers and Thorns will be hosting a school supply drive to benefit Boys & Girls Aid at their games on Friday and Saturday. Fans can bring school supplies to the game to donate, and Boys & Girls Aid will be giving them out to youth in their foster care programs.

Items most needed by the organization include the following: backpacks (for teens), reusable water bottles, lunch bags, keychain hand sanitizers, No. 2 pencils, mechanical pencils and lead pencil sharpeners, erasers, pencil pouches, black/blue ink pens, highlighters, markers, colored pencils, 3x5 notecards, Post-it notes, whiteout, 12-inch rulers, calculators, graphing calculators, journals, day planners, calendars, college-rule notebooks, college ruled loose-leaf paper, 1-inch binders, 3-inch binders, 3-ring folders, 3-ring binder dividers, USB flash drives, blue light glasses, and headphones.

-- Ryan Clarke, rclarke@oregonian.com

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