The San Diego Wave have taken the NWSL by storm. The expansion club leads the league standings at the international break in its first season.

The Wave can’t get too comfortable, though. New talent, shifts in form and national team call-ups could shake up the table.

Where teams stand at the international break

San Diego Wave FC

The Wave (5-2-3) have been stellar in their start to the regular season, capping off their early run through the season with an emphatic 3-0 win over Gotham FC. Veteran forward Alex Morgan has served at the Wave’s anchor, scoring a league-leading 11 of San Diego’s 16 goals.

But as Morgan and fellow attacking force Taylor Kornieck report to international duty for the USWNT and Swedish international Sofia Jakobsson heads out for the Euros, the Wave’s humming attack could be tested.

Portland Thorns

Speaking of a humming attack, the Portland Thorns have been on a goal-scoring tear, leading the NWSL in goal differential at plus-14. The Thorns have managed to rack up an average of 2.3 goals per match while only conceding 0.8 goals per game, a promising stat for the Portland club.

Sophia Smith, the team’s leading scorer, and Becky Sauerbrunn, the club’s defensive anchor, will be with the USWNT for the Concacaf W Championship come July, presenting Portland with a challenge. The Thorns, however, have impressive depth and may fair better than other teams in terms of international player absences.

Sophia Smith gets a deserved second. Portland are brushing aside Orlando with ease #PORvORL (🎥 @NWSL)pic.twitter.com/WRSWpECJLl

— AllForXI (@AllForXI) June 19, 2022

Chicago Red Stars

Like San Diego and Portland, Chicago’s attack is propelled by a red-hot USWNT striker. Mallory Pugh leads the Red Stars with six goals and two assists, helping the club a 4-1-4 record to start the season. Sitting on a seven-game unbeaten streak heading into the international break, Chicago has some padding to cushion the potential blow of Pugh’s national team duty.

Houston Dash

Houston has endured a roller coaster start to the NWSL regular season, sitting fourth in the standings with a 4-2-3 record.

Canadian international Nichelle Prince and England’s Rachel Daly have been solid for the Dash, notching five and four goals, respectively. A feisty team, leading the league in successful tackles per match with 16.1, Houston knows how to put together a win. The Dash, however, need to find some consistency and will hope a thrilling 4-3 win ahead of the break will be just the momentum they need.

OL Reign

OL Reign have all the talent — and more on the way — but has yet to live up to its potential. The Seattle club recently signed Tobin Heath, Kim Little and Jordyn Huitema to join a stacked lineup that includes Rose Lavelle, Jess Fishlock, Bethany Balcer and Sofia Huerta. With only a total of seven goals scored, OL Reign are second to last in goals per match at 0.8, even with their attacking firepower.

Heading into the break, OL Reign will look to get their team in sync in the final third and hopefully get Tziarra King more minutes on the pitch while doing so.

Make that two for Tziarra King. OL Reign take the lead with a few minutes to go before half time #NWSL (🎥 @NWSL)pic.twitter.com/mEBtvDg5GA

— AllForXI (@AllForXI) May 8, 2022

Angel City FC

The expansion club was dealt a crippling blow in its penultimate match ahead of the international break. Marquee player Christen Press tore her ACL, sidelining the star forward for the season. Without Press, the likes of Simone Charley and Jasmyne Spencer will have to step up as the new headliners of ACFC’s forward line.

Washington Spirit

Perhaps no team needs a break more than the Washington Spirit. The club weathered a packed start to the season, with coach Kris Ward relying on heavy rotation to rest his star players. Now, seven Spirit players will be away from the team as Ashley Hatch, Aubrey Kingsbury, Kelley O’Hara, Trinity Rodman, Ashley Sanchez, Emily Sonnett and Andi Sullivan head to the Concacaf W Championship with the USWNT.

Washington enters the international team break on a 10-game winless streak and is in need of some synergy once the squad is rested and reunited.

Trinity Rodman is CLINICAL 💫

Washington Spirit break the deadlock 💥 pic.twitter.com/r8LHvNnpoN

— Attacking Third (@AttackingThird) June 18, 2022

Gotham FC

There were high hopes for Gotham FC ahead of the 2022 season, with many even referring to their campaign as a “win-now” scenario. The NJ/NY club has looked anything but “win now,” posting a 3-4-0 record on the year. Gotham’s attack has struggled, with the team only scoring five total goals for a discouraging 0.7 goals per match.

Heading into the international break, Gotham FC will need to build out its midfield, securing the lineup so Kristie Mewis can be released into the attack.

Racing Louisville

Racing Louisville heads into the break after a promising 2-2 draw against the Washington Spirit. Nadia Nadim’s return from her ACL injury has buoyed the team, with the veteran scoring in her first two 2022 appearances with the club. Nadim’s potential to link up with Jessica McDonald could bode well for a Racing Louisville team that appears to be slowly growing into their season.

Kansas City Current

Kansas City was dealt a devastating blow to start the season, with new acquisitions Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams both sidelined due to injury.

Though down the standings and without key players, the Current have some positives to hold on to. Kansas City ranks third in the league in big chances created, according to FotMob, with Kristen Hamilton headlining the team’s attack. If the Current can button up their defense and convert more of their opportunities up the pitch, the club may be able to move up the table.

Kristen Hamilton with a breakthrough goal for the Current 🌟 pic.twitter.com/SXJuFahjCu

— Attacking Third (@AttackingThird) June 12, 2022

Orlando Pride

The Orlando Pride has had a trying 2022, falling to 11th in the NWSL standings at the international break.

With five losses on the season and a staggering goal differential of minus-15, Orlando could use a pick-me-up. The team stumbled into the break after falling to the Thorns 6-0 in a thumping from the Portland side, following up their 5-0 thrashing from the Dash. With coach Amanda Cromwell on leave pending an investigation into alleged retaliation in violation of league policy, Orlando will look to turn around a rocky regular-season start on and off the pitch.

North Carolina Courage

The Courage have struggled since taking home the Challenge Cup title in May.

After several COVID-19 absences, North Carolina seems to be growing into their season. Debinha and Kerolin have been explosive for the Courage, while Carson Pickett continues to dominate the flanks. Though North Carolina is currently last in the standings, the team holds a level goal differential, forecasting a promising next leg of the 2022 campaign.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony on Friday afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

"I'm surrounded by so many extraordinary people in so many different fields," Ledecky told Just Women's Sports on Friday. "I feel like I've made a lot of friends today among that group, and their families and their friends."

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

Ledecky said she was surprised to learn how recent it has been that athletes in women's sports have been considered for the honor. Billie Jean King was the first to receive the award in 2009. "That kind of blew my mind that it was that recent," she said.

"There are so many great female athletes that I've looked up to for so many years," she continued. "And I know we're just going to keep pushing ahead, and doing our best to continue to get a seat at every table."

Like Biles, Ledecky receives the Medal of Freedom while she's still actively competing in her sport, a fact not lost on the 27-year-old. "My goals in the pool are to continue to push forward and swim good times, hopefully win some more medals. And then secondly to continue to do good things out of the pool, whether that's inspiring young kids to learn how to swim, get into the sport, set big goals in whatever pursuits they're interested in."

"I've recognized I've had a long career now, and it's important to reflect every now and then. But at the same time, I'm still competing and still working hard into the future."

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.