Four years after claiming the final WUSA championship in 2003, the Washington Freedom returned to the top of North American women’s soccer with an impressive run to the W-League Championship in their first official season in the league. It was a new-look W-League final four with Washington, Atlanta, Rochester and Seattle.

Atlanta (9-2-1) avoided their usual late-season fade to finish as the Atlantic’s top seed in a three-team race that was separate by two points as they all finished with just two losses. They finished the season with a 4-1 win at second-place Richmond, who were also 9-2-1, and a 5-0 win over Fredericksburg. The domination continued in Minnesota for the conference playoffs, where they drubbed Michigan 4-0 and stunned the host Lightning (10-1-1) with a 5-2 win to reach the league semifinals.

In the west, it was a bit of an unusual year as perennial power Vancouver found themselves with a 1-1-1 record early on in their title defense. The Whitecaps split their opening games against Seattle and played the expansion San Diego Sunwaves to a 2-2 draw. They returned to dominance in a six-game span against the Colorado trio, winning at home going 3-0-1 in a road swing and playing to a draw in their return to the north.

Meanwhile, Seattle was rebounding from a rough 1-3-0 start to go 6-0-1 in their next seven. The first-year Sunwaves were being brought back into the pack after opening with a three-game sweep Colorado road sweep, falling to Seattle twice and playing the Whitecaps to a draw. With their venue available for the second half of the season, the skid continued for San Diego in a 1-0 loss to Real Colorado, but they righted the ship to close out the season in dominating fashion, posting five straight wins by an aggregate 18-4 scoreline that included 4-1 and 2-0 wins over Vancouver and Seattle.

The Whitecaps would find themselves out of the postseason picture for the first time with their loss to San Diego coupling with a 2-1 defeat at home in the final week to the Sounders, ending a 33-game home unbeaten streak that stretched to a loss to Seattle May 11, 2003. It was only the second time they would not reach the final four in their seven-year history.

Despite losing 2-0 in San Diego the final weekend of the season, the Sounders returned to Southern California to register a come-from-behind 2-1 win in the conference championship to move onto the league semifinals.

In the east, it was a dogfight from the beginning with the Freedom, expansion Jersey Sky Blue, New Jersey Wildcats, Ottawa Fury and Toronto Lady Lynx gunning for the top spot and the right to host the conference playoffs. Toronto’s hopes faded midseason when a series of 0-2-1 results against Ottawa within the span of a month gave the Fury a commanding advantage as they ran to an 11-0-1 finish in the Northern Division as the lone unbeaten in the league for the season.

Meanwhile in the Northeast, the first-year Sky Blue only managed three wins before rival New Jersey handed them their first loss 1-0 at home. They went on to win their next five before their second defeat of the campaign came at the hands of Washington 3-2 at home again. The Freedom’s victory was vengeance for their lone loss of the campaign, a 3-0 drubbing at home from Jersey after a 6-0-1 start. The 2005 champion Wildcats were the last unbeaten at 5-0-3 when they suffered their first defeat 1-0 in Boston. The result sent the club in a spiral as they went winless in their next five to miss the postseason.

Washington would go on to win the division, thump the Lady Lynx 6-1 in the conference semifinal and edge Ottawa, 4-0 winners over Jersey, for the conference championship in a narrow 1-0 decision. The result ended Ottawa’s run of four straight league semifinal appearances, the longest in the league.

The Freedom, as expected, dispatched of the host Rhinos in easy fashion 3-0 in the semifinals while Atlanta cruised to a 4-1 win over the Sounders in the other semi, setting up a rematch of sorts as Washington’s 2003 WUSA title came against the Atlanta Beat. The final, however, went the way of Washington as they scored in the first minute and never looked back as they captured the championship 3-1.