The scoreline says 1-0. Just about everything else says this was not close.

Seattle Reign FC outshot the Houston Dash 17 to 4 on Sunday evening at Lumen Field and won the expected goals battle 1.84 to 0.17. Houston did not register a shot until the 29th minute, when Kat Rader put one off target with her right foot. They finished the first half with two attempts total. For a team that has made a habit of scoring late, they never really got close enough to try.

Houston came out pressing high from the whistle, and it did not slow Seattle down much. In the fourth minute Ryanne Brown drove an attack and sent a cross toward the far post that nobody quite reached. On the resulting goal kick, Sally Menti stepped up and forced a turnover, Ainsley McCammon picked it up and struck from distance, and while it did not find the frame, it set the tone for the next hour.

Laura Harvey's plan was built around choking off Houston's double pivot, and it worked. Sam Meza, back in the lineup after missing three matches with an injury, McCammon and Menti kept lifting balls wide for Maddie Dahlien and Mia Fishel to run onto. Sofia Huerta, Brown and Jordyn Bugg all got forward with crosses. The only thing missing was the finish.

Jane Campbell kept it that way for 51 minutes. She denied Dahlien at the far post in the 22nd, with Leah Klenke well placed to clear the rebound, and she finished with four saves, three of them on Dahlien.

The goal finally came seven minutes into the second half. Phoebe McClernon collected a Houston clearance and moved it wide to Maddie Mercado, who put a cross into the back post. Campbell went diving to intercept it and could not get there. The ball dropped to Dahlien, who took it with her first touch and put it into an empty net.

It was Dahlien's third goal of the season and the seventh of her NWSL career, which puts her in a five-way tie for the 10th most regular season goals in Reign history. Six of them have been game winners. For Mercado, it was her first assist of the year.

Dahlien nearly had a second in the 80th when she pickpocketed a Dash defender and sprinted into a one on one, but Campbell stayed big and turned it away point blank.

At the other end, Claudia Dickey made a single save. That was all the work she got, and it was enough for her sixth clean sheet of the season and the 19th of her career.

Harvey was pleased and a little impatient at the same time. "Huge. I think we controlled the game," she said. "I said to the players at the end there, I think we need to be more ruthless through the last couple of games. This game it didn't hurt us, Chicago it didn't hurt us, Louisville it hurt us."

The win was Harvey's 18th against Houston, more than she has against any other NWSL opponent since 2013, and it stretched the Reign's home unbeaten run to four matches.

Seattle sits at 9-8-4 with 31 points, holding eighth place and the final playoff spot with a game in hand on every team above them. Houston drops to 7-10-5 and 26 points, still very much alive in a table that Dash keeper Jane Campbell's teammates described as crunch time.

A crowd of 7,878 turned out. The Reign stay home and host fourth place San Diego on Sunday, September 6 at 6 p.m. PT on ESPN2. Houston heads to Orlando.