San Diego Wave’s Kailen Sheridan, Casey Stoney claim 2022 NWSL awards

As debut seasons go, they don’t get much better than what San Diego did

It’s fair to say that the San Diego Wave’s debut season was a successful one.

On Wednesday, the accolades kept rolling in. First, goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan was named the NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year award. A few hours later, head coach Casey Stoney was recognized as the league’s Coach of the Year.

The individual awards fit with a theme for the club. The expansion side may not have made the NWSL championship game, but it took an amazing, last-gasp Crystal Dunn goal to end their season, making this a new standard for what a team can do in year one. Off the field, the Wave set league records for single-game attendance in the regular season and in the playoffs, and had three players named to the league’s Best XI.

Sheridan took the Goalkeeper of the Year award just one day after being one of San Diego’s Best XI trio (joining Naomi Girma and Alex Morgan). Normally, one would conclude that the Best XI goalkeeper must also be the Goalkeeper of the Year, but in 2021 the votes were somehow split, with Sheridan making the Best XI and Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury taking the Goalkeeper of the Year trophy.

The award adds to Sheridan’s long list of accolades over the last 18 months. Since winning Olympic gold with Canada, Sheridan has been named to the NWSL Best XI twice, and was the CONCACAF W Championship’s Golden Glove winner (on top of being named to the tournament’s Best XI).

Sheridan has developed a well-deserved reputation for making game-changing saves, and stopped three of the four penalty kicks she faced in league play this season. While San Diego’s defense was resolute due to coaching and personnel along the back line, Sheridan’s organizational ability was also a major factor in the Wave being one of only two teams to give up fewer than one goal per game.

AD Franch of the Kansas City Current finished second in the balloting, while OL Reign’s Phallon Tullis-Joyce was third.

Stoney, meanwhile, was informed that she had won the Coach of the Year award by her children at a team event.

Stoney took an expansion side built from younger players (for example, three rookies started their playoff defeat against Portland) and additions that other teams were willing to part with, and spent a big chunk of 2022 leading the league, ultimately finishing in third place. Under her leadership, San Diego saw Morgan have a career season at the club level, while Taylor Kornieck took a huge step up, getting into the U.S. women’s national team picture.

Stoney finished ahead of OL Reign’s Laura Harvey and Kansas City Current head coach Matt Potter, who came in second and third respectively.

Polling for both awards went through two rounds, with players, club owners, GMs and coaches, and media members submitted ballots to create the shortlist of nominees for all league awards. The second round, restricted to just those nominees, saw a weighted process that broke down as 50% players, 20% owners, GMs, and coaches, 20% media, and 10% fans.

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