The NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament kicked off Wednesday with first-round matchups. Undefeated No. 1 seed Wisconsin is projected to win it all, with Kentucky, Minnesota and Texas rounding out the top four.

As the event gets underway, we’ve compiled a list of six players we think will lead their teams deep in the tournament and help them contend for the national title.

1. Dana Rettke, Middle Blocker, Wisconsin

Bio: 6-foot-8 senior from Riverside, Ill. 2017 2018, 2019 AVCA First Team All-American. 2017 AVCA Freshman of the Year. 2019-2020 Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year.

2020-21 stats
Total kills: 138
Hitting percentage: .456
Total blocks: 70

This season, Rettke has proven once again that she is a force to be reckoned with at the net. With 263 kill attempts, 138 kills and only 18 errors, she is an incredibly efficient offensive weapon. Defensively, she’s recorded 70 blocks since the start of the season, a product of her 6-8 stature and lateral speed at the net.

. @dana_rettke is not a regular Badger, she's a cool Badger 🦡 pic.twitter.com/QkGg0tGsgW

— Wisconsin Volleyball (@BadgerVB) April 1, 2021

2. Stephanie Samedy, Opposite Hitter, Minnesota

Bio: 6-2 senior from Clermont, Fla. 2020 Big-10 Player of the Year. 2017, 2018 AVCA First Team All-American. First Minnesota freshman ever to receive First Team All-American honors.

2020-21 stats
Total kills: 259
Hitting percentage: .278
Total blocks: 47
Total digs: 158

Samedy is unbelievably fun to watch. The newly crowned Big 10 Player of the Year can jump out of the gym and has a wicked cross-swing (which is very hard to do as a right-handed opposite hitter). A go-to player for the Gophers, Samedy has taken 668 total offensive attempts and has capitalized on 259 of them while committing just 73 hitting errors. If she’s having a bad day on offense, she’s able to make up for it on defense with strong blocks and the ability to dig balls in the backcourt.

.@StephanieSamedy averaged a league-best 4.11 kills per set during Big Ten competition. Take one more look back at her Big Ten Player of the Year performance! pic.twitter.com/OHInaC2kcN

— Minnesota Volleyball (@GopherVBall) April 12, 2021

3. Yossiana Pressley, Outside Hitter, Baylor

Bio: 6-0 senior from Cypress, Texas. 2019 AVCA National Player of the Year. 2019 ESPNW National Player of the Year. 2019 AVCA First Team All-American.

2020-21 stats
Total kills: 447
Hitting percentage: .247
Total blocks: 55
Total digs: 193

If you find yourself playing volleyball against Pressley, you should be scared. She’s only 6-feet tall, but she makes up for it by jumping higher, hanging for longer and hitting the ball harder (and faster) than most other college players. She’s a dual threat who can kill the ball from the front and back row and is just as impressive on defense.

S2: She's a BEAST! 💥#SicEm 🐻🏐 | @yossiana22 pic.twitter.com/t7WLa7Wch2

— Baylor Volleyball (@BaylorVBall) March 26, 2021

4. Logan Eggleston, Outside Hitter, Texas

Bio: 6-0 junior from Brentwood, Tenn. 2019 AVCA Second Team All-American. 2018 Big 12 Freshman of the Year. 2020 three-time Big-12 Conference Offensive Player of the Week.

2020-21 stats
Total kills: 379
Hitting percentage: .333
Total blocks: 42
Total digs: 205
Service aces: 41

Eggleston is a key player for four-seed Texas. The two-time All-American took 873 swings this season, racking up 379 kills for the Longhorns. She’s aggressive behind the service line, as evidenced by her 40 aces, and dug over 200 balls on defense. Eggleston has the tools to lead a balanced Longhorn team deep into the tournament.

LOOK OUT! @loganeggleston_'s first kill of the night is a Rocket!

Texas ⬆️ 1️⃣2️⃣-8️⃣! #HookEm 🤘 pic.twitter.com/ioB6lbepYi

— Texas Volleyball (@TexasVolleyball) March 4, 2021

5. Lauren Stivrins, Middle Blocker, Nebraska

Bio: 6-4 senior from Scottsdale, Ariz. 2018 AVCA First Team All-American. 2019 AVCA Second Team All-American. Ranked third in the Big Ten in 2019 with a .412 hitting percentage during conference play.

2020-21 stats
Total kills: 181
Hitting percentage: .471
Total blocks: 61

Stivrins is one of the best middle blockers in the country and critical to the success of five-seed Nebraska. She’s quick on offense and has a good “volleyball IQ,” meaning she’s able to see the court and anticipate the next play before it happens. With 181 kills, and only 33 errors on 315 kill attempts this season, Stivrins is incredibly efficient at the net, opening up opportunities for the Huskers’ outside and opposite hitters to score.

Name something @LaurenStivrins can't do.

We'll wait. 🤷‍♀️ @Huskervball pic.twitter.com/nGdG01WeXD

— Nebraska On BTN (@NebraskaOnBTN) March 21, 2021

6. Madison Lilley, Setter, Kentucky

Bio: 5-11 senior from Overland Park, Kent. 2017, 2018, 2019 AVCA Second Team All-American. 2017 SEC Freshman of the Year. Named Gatorade Player of the Year in high school.

2020-21 stats
Assists: 791
Total digs: 153
Total blocks: 47
Total kills: 47

Recently named the 2021 SEC Player of the Year, Lilley was integral to the Wildcats winning the conference championship and securing the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. With 791 assists on the season, Lilley has excellent court vision and the ability to spread the Wildcats’ offense across the net. If Kentucky is going to advance to its first Final Four in program history, the three-time All-American will play a huge role in getting them there.

LAST CHANCE TO HELP THESE WILDCATS, #BBN!!!!!!!!!!

Help @KentuckyVB's Gabby Curry and Madison Lilley win the Senior CLASS Award by voting HERE by Wednesday, April 14https://t.co/HMEQOC2PDy pic.twitter.com/h9NMQd0tsG

— BBN Tonight (@BBNTonight) April 13, 2021

Tune in: Tournament matches will be streamed on ESPN3, with the Final Four airing on ESPN2.

• First round: April 14, ESPN3
• Second round: April 15, ESPN3
• Regional Semifinals: April 18, ESPN3/U
• Regional Finals: April 19, ESPN3/U
• Semis: April 22, ESPN2
• National Championship: April 24, ESPN2

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.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.