USWNT World Cup roster includes Wisconsin alum

With the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup set to begin July 20, the USWNT roster was announced Wednesday and it included a former Badger.

With the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup set to begin July 20, the USWNT roster was announced Wednesday and it included a former Wisconsin Badger midfielder. A member of the Badger women’s soccer team from 2013-2016, Rose Lavelle will appear in her second World Cup.

The 5-foot-4 athlete was a superstar for the United States women’s national soccer team during the 2019 World Cup, winning the Bronze Ball as the third-best player in the tournament.

This comes as no surprise though after her successful career with Wisconsin, after she won many awards with the Badgers. These include the 2013 Big Ten Freshman of the Year award, her being named a 2015 MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalist and Lavelle being selected for an All-American team each year from 2014-2016.

Lavelle went on to be selected first overall in the 2017 NWSL Draft by the Boston Breakers and she is one of the very best soccer players in the world, let alone country.

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Women’s History Month Spotlight: NWSLPA President Tori Huster

Not only do they have the union advocating for their best interests, but they are being educated on how to advocate for themselves.

This Women’s History Month, I will be spotlighting women athletes and their achievements in college, after college, and beyond. Athletes are Humans First and while I want to highlight their athletic ability and achievements, I also want to point a spotlight on what they are doing off their field of play.

Tori Huster is a professional athlete in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and the president of the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association (NWSLPA). Huster was first elected to the position in 2020 and was re-elected by the players in 2022. The NWSLPA is the official collective bargaining organization for the NWSL players.

On Jan. 31st, 2022 at approximately 8.30 pm ET, the National Women’s Soccer League’s Players Association announced they had ratified the first-ever collective bargaining agreement in women’s soccer history. As the president of the association, Huster helped oversee the collective bargaining process.

On April 29th, 2022, the Executive Director Meghann Burke of the NWSLPA and NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman signed the collective bargaining agreement on the field before Angel City’s regular season home opener.

“It’s a big focus of mine to make sure players know their rights and to make sure clubs are abiding by what is actually in the agreement. While the CBA is a historic moment for the league, there are plenty of areas up for interpretation within the agreement,” Huster said in a press release issued by her club, the Washington Spirit.

Huster started soccer at a young age and went on to play D1 soccer at Florida State University where she was a four-year starter, first-team Scholar All-American by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in 2011, a third-team All-American, and first-team All-ACC in her final season at FSU.

She also shined in the classroom where she was the recipient of the Golden Torch Award for achieving the highest GPA among soccer student-athletes during the 2009-10 semester, was a four-time FSU Dean’s List honoree, and FSU President’s List – 4.0 GPA in the Spring of 2009. Huster initially thought she might want to be a physician’s assistant and even shadowed a few after college.

The league for professional women’s soccer in the United States folded in 2012 just as Huster was making her way into the league. She played for a few semi-professional leagues and then went overseas to play in Australia for one season. However, her professional soccer career was just taking off and she found she was destined to make history for women athletes around the world.

In 2013, the NWSL emerged and professional soccer was once again an option for players domestically. Huster was drafted by the Spirit with the club’s second pick in the 2013 NWSL Supplemental Draft.

“While Huster played with the Spirit, she took odd jobs to supplement her league pay, which she said was less than $20,000 per season for her first few years. She wrote articles, took photography gigs, trained youth players, coached for club teams, walked dogs, and worked as the executive assistant for a natural turf grass consultant at Maryland Soccerplex, the latter which helped her develop small business and organization skills that would translate to her work with the players association,” according to her interview with Club Eleven Magazine.

Taking odd jobs and working to make a living wage is not new to the world of women’s sports, so Huster had a first-hand understanding of the trials and tribulations players were facing to play the sport they loved.

Huster and her teammates worked through harassment and advocated for a change of ownership all while working their additional jobs and playing professional soccer. Something had to give.

“In past years, there has not been a place for players to go, or that they feel comfortable going if they have experienced sexual abuse, verbal abuse, any type of harassment,” Huster noted in her interview with Club Eleven Magazine. “The league in the past has said that they had a policy which they were not able to provide us at the beginning of this year, when we demanded that they put it into place right now before the start of the season. We believe that they may have been operating with US Soccer’s anti-harassment policy. But again, they didn’t provide that
 If they were using it, players didn’t know, and players didn’t know where to go if they had issues.”

While the league has gone through its ups and downs, the players are always at the forefront of positive changes. That’s what having a union can do for athletes. Not only do they have the union advocating for their best interests, but they are being educated on how to advocate for themselves.

Fast forward to the end of 2021. The NWSLPA entered into a group licensing agreement with OneTeam Partners, entered into its first sponsorship agreements with Ally Bank and MasterCard, hired a business agent to manage business affairs, and entered into a Commercial Rights Agreement.

“I think that if we [the players, the NWSLPA] are able to empower other people to speak up
 if we can be very transparent and honest about that process, individually, and as a collective, I think that gives other people the courage to do the same in whatever walk of life that they are living,” Huster told Club Eleven Magazine.

While the league is still relatively young, the players have taken the lead in advocating for their rights and Huster, along with her predecessors has helped pave the way. These players understand they are working for the greater good and might not see all the changes implemented during their playing careers or even their lifetimes.

“We’re going to be able to get things done that we could never have imagined before
 because we’re not worried about the league crumbling down because we know that we are the league,” Huster told Club Eleven Magazine.

 

NC Courage captain Abby Erceg was absolutely incensed over a trade of her teammate

Per their team captain, the Courage still “suck” at trades.

After finishing seventh in the National Women’s Soccer League table last season, the North Carolina Courage felt like they needed to make a deal to acquire a few more pieces in the NWSL Draft on Thursday night, apparently.

So, the Courage shipped Diana Ordonez and the No. 30 overall pick to the Houston Dash in exchange for the No. 8 overall pick, a 2023 international roster spot, the Dash’s 2024 first-round pick and $100,000 in allocation money.

Ordonez was the Courage’s first-round pick in last year’s draft and impressed mightily as a 20-year-old rookie, scoring 11 goals in 19 games. That was the second most for North Carolina behind Brazilian midfielder Debinha, who left the team via free agency to join the Kansas City Current. It seemed, for a moment, that Ordonez was due for a starring role.

Naturally, some of Ordonez’s Courage teammates were unhappy with the transaction.

One vocal critic was the team’s longtime captain, centerback Abby Erceg.

Fellow Courage teammate Carson Pickett chimed in with a tweet too, saying, “Hate this for us, love it for you.”

Courage coach Sean Nahas later told reporters that Ordonez – a native of Mexico – wanted to be closer to her family.

Erceg has been with the Courage since the team relocated to Cary, N.C. from western New York in 2017. So, she’s been there for the good (two NWSL championships in 2018 and 2019) and the bad (the firing of Paul Riley and a recent decline in attendance). Erceg has also played in four World Cups for New Zealand and has been named to the NWSL’s Best XI or Second XI four times. So, perhaps she knows a good goal-scorer – like Ordonez – when she sees one.

The trade for Ordonez and previous deals gave the Courage four first round picks in Thursday’s NWSL Draft. North Carolina selected Notre Dame forward Olivia Wyngate, Cal defender Sydney Collins, Florida State midfielder Clara Robbins, and Virginia forward Haley Hopkins.

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Rutgers women’s soccer continues to find new firsts for the program

Rutgers women’s soccer continues to excel as they close out the regular season with a win at Illinois.

The list of firsts continues for Rutgers women’s soccer following a 3-0 win at Illinois to close out the regular season.

Not only did the Scarlet Knights capture the school’s first Big Ten title since joining the conference in 2014, but the women’s soccer team put together the first undefeated Big Ten season in school history as well. With the win at Illinois, Rutgers finished the season 10-0 in conference play, becoming the first women’s soccer program in the conference to not drop points (only wins, no losses or ties) since Penn State in 2005.

Rutgers now goes into next week’s Big Ten Tournament as the No. 1 seed.

The Scarlet Knights are 15-2 on the season and have won 11 straight games.

Allison Lowery got the game-winner at Illinois in the first half, scoring in the 37th minute. That was followed by Amirah Ali’s brace in the second half to put an exclamation point on what has been a tremendous regular season so far for Rutgers.

The men’s soccer program is 8-4-2 (2-4-1 Big Ten) and lost on Friday 2-1 at a very good Michigan team. They play UConn on Tuesday at Yurcak Field.

Tigers top Gamecocks again

CLEMSON, S.C . – Behind an early goal from junior Hal Hershfelt and a header goal from sophomore Megan Bornkamp, the Tigers took home the win against in-state rival South Carolina (5-1, 0-0 SEC), 2-1 on Thursday night at Historic Riggs Field. The …

CLEMSON, S.C. – Behind an early goal from junior Hal Hershfelt and a header goal from sophomore Megan Bornkamp, the Tigers took home the win against in-state rival South Carolina (5-1, 0-0 SEC), 2-1 on Thursday night at Historic Riggs Field.

The Tigers (4-2, 0-0 ACC) struck early on in the match. In the ninth minute, Hershfelt blasted a ball into the back of the net off a give-and-go from Renee Guion and Bornkamp. The Tigers continued to be on the offensive end, which paid dividends as Guion was once again dominant from the corner as she laid in a perfect ball which Bornkamp headed into the back of the net to increase the Tigers’ lead to two. The Tigers and Gamecocks battled back and forth in the second half until South Carolina’s Remi Swartz netted a goal in the 77th minute to cut the lead to one. The Gamecocks threatened Clemson’s defense in the latter part of the second half, but the Tigers held on and took the 2-1 victory against the No. 12 South Carolina Gamecocks.

Goalkeeper Hensley Hancuff played in all 90 minutes and recorded three saves on the night. 

“When these two teams get together, it’s always a battle,” said Head Coach Eddie Radwanski. “We got off to a great start and took command of the game. This team was ranked No. 1 in the RPI, so this is a good win for us and our resume. We’ve been a little sloppy in some of the games that we’ve conceded, and we turned it around a little bit. We still have a lot of work to do and will continue to get better as we grow into the season, but a great result at this point in the season.”

The Tigers will travel to Boiling Springs, N.C. to play Gardner-Webb in a final non-conference match on Sunday at 6 p.m. Game coverage will be available on ACCNX.

–Courtesy of Clemson Athletic Communications