Taylor Smith felt helpless.

In a short period of time, the soccer star suffered an ACL tear, was cut from the U.S. women’s national team and went through a break-up.

Smith joined Snacks co-hosts Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams on Snacks for Mental Health Day last week to chronicle that period of her life and her ongoing battle with depression in hopes of helping others who find themselves in similar situations.

“Anything that could go wrong went so wrong,” she told them. “I had such a hard time coping with it. When I was in it I felt so frustrated, but now I look back and see that I needed to have more empathy for myself.

“I genuinely felt that there was nothing in this world that was going to make me happy.”

Eventually, Smith felt that she couldn’t cope anymore. The trauma and mental health issues she’d battled since childhood took over her mind, and Smith attempted to take her own life.

Smith ended up in the hospital and continued to struggle with suicidal thoughts. And while they haven’t gone away completely, through therapy, Smith has learned how to cope with the depression that’s controlled her for so long.

“I felt like I was in survival mode for 25 years,” the 28-year-old forward said. “It was just exhausting, and you can’t thrive when you are in that state of mind.”

These days, Smith is thriving. She’s learned to take time for herself and carve out a routine that brings her joy. She loves walking her dogs, journaling and chatting with friends. When Smith was deep in her depression, she says that she neglected her relationships.

“You can only treat people as good as you feel,” she said.

Now, she feels good, and because of that, Smith has been able to pour more energy into her relationships with her friends and with herself.

“I wasn’t healthy so I didn’t want to open up and be vulnerable,” she said. “My coping mechanism was to isolate and be super self-sufficient.”

As Smith has learned to open up, she’s also found peace on the soccer field once more. After being cut by the USWNT, Smith was in what she calls “a bad situation” with the North Carolina Courage, a team coached by Paul Riley despite his firing from the Portland Thorns following an investigation into abusive conduct.

Now, she’s found a home for the next three seasons.

Gotham FC announced on Monday that it had re-signed Smith to a three-year contract, keeping her in New York/New Jersey through the 2025 season. Acquired off of waivers in June, Smith went on to play 18 games for Gotham, recording two goals and one assist in 15 starts.

CLUB NEWS: We have re-signed forward/defender @taylornsmith11_ to a three-year contract through the 2025 season.

📰: https://t.co/nOMNKfwCnQ pic.twitter.com/gdMXuAkSHx

— NJ/NY Gotham FC (@GothamFC) October 17, 2022

“From the first day I arrived this summer, I’ve enjoyed every second of being a part of Gotham FC,” Smith said in a press release. “I feel valued here and cannot wait to continue to make a positive impact. I wholeheartedly believe we will build off our last performance and make everyone proud next year. The team, the fans, the city and community are second to none, and I feel so honored to be able to call this home the next three years.”

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.

USWNT regulars Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson furthered their cases for Olympic inclusion with their respective club victories on Saturday and Sunday.

After a roller coaster of a week that saw former Thorns head coach Mike Norris reassigned and a flurry of last-minute roster reshufflings as Friday's trade window closure loomed, the NWSL sprung to life over the weekend with standout performances from ninth-place Portland and third-place Chicago, among others.

After her blocked attempt at goal set up a volleying sixth-minute opener from veteran Christine Sinclair — now the only player in history to record a goal in all 11 NWSL seasons — Smith swiftly netted her own in the 27th minute off a breakaway run that eluded Houston's backline. The goal represented Smith's third of the season as well as her 35th for the Thorns, ultimately leading to the home side's first win of the season in a 4-1 routing of the Dash.

But that wasn't Smith's only stat of the evening. The star forward also lapped former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr to become the youngest player to reach 50 NWSL goal contributions across all games, chalking up 40 goals and 10 assists at the age of 23 years and 254 days.

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"Obviously it feels good to get a win," said Smith in a post-match press conference. "But this is the standard the Thorns have always had. So a win is great, but a win is the expectation — we're hungrier than ever after the way we started."

170 miles up the road, Lumen Field similarly showcased some promising Olympic prospect footwork on Sunday. In Chicago's 2-1 victory over the lagging 13th-place Seattle Reign, striker Mallory Swanson racked up an impressive counterattack assist on fellow forward Ally Schlegel's fourth-minute goal. Swanson went on to find the back of the net herself before halftime, lacing an explosive ball into the top corner in the 31st minute, her second of the season after returning from a lengthy sidelining injury.

Speaking of injuries, fellow USWNT favorites Alex Morgan and Tierna Davidson were not as fortunate as their national squad teammates this weekend. Each exited their club matches early, Morgan with an ankle knock in San Diego's loss to Orlando and Davidson with an apparent hamstring incident early on in Washington's win over Gotham.

LSU came out on top at the 2024 NCAA women's gymnastics championship in Fort Worth on Saturday, besting Cal, Utah, and Florida to capture their first-ever title.

The Tigers' win was far from a landslide. LSU took the first rotation handily thanks to 2024 All-Around winner Haleigh Bryant's team-leading 9.9375 backed by four additional 9.9+ scores from her teammates. But Utah then responded with three strong beam performances of their own, causing the Red Rocks to slide confidently into second place by the end of the second rotation.

By the halfway point, all four teams fell within .288 points of one another before Utah overtook the pack with a dominant floor showing after three rotations. LSU then went on to ace the beam event with Konnor McClain's meet-leading 9.9625 score, coming away with the highest collective score ever awarded to the event in NCAA championship history. The achievement propelled the Tigers to victory, ensuring them the title after the final rotation.

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"This team is full of individuals that have incredible character and integrity and love for each other and all the things you hear from coaches when they sit at a podium like this in a moment of victory, but I promise you it's a real thing," said LSU coach Jay Clark in a post-meet press conference. "I'm just so happy for them."

Contributing to Saturday's atmosphere of excitement was the absence of last year's champion and this year's heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners. Hot off earning the highest team score in NCAA history just last month, the top-ranked Norman squad suffered a shocking loss in the semifinals, where five major mistakes contributed to a third-place finish and a season-low team score of 196.6625.

With Oklahoma out, it was truly anyone's game.

"Every team was out there fighting for their lives — all four teams, it could have gone any of four ways out there," Clark told reporters. "As much as I feel for what happened to Oklahoma in the semifinals, I think it made for a championship that became so packed with emotion because every team out there believed they could do it. It was just tremendous."

LSU is now the eighth program in the sport's history to earn an NCAA women's gymnastic championship.
They share the honor with Georgia, Utah, UCLA, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and Michigan.

Cameron Brink already has her rookie of the year pick for the upcoming WNBA season, and it’s Indiana-bound star Caitlin Clark. 

In the latest edition of Kelley on the Street, host Kelley O'Hara caught up with Brink in New York hours before the Stanford phenom went No. 2 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft. When O’Hara asked who would win the WNBA's rookie of the year, she answered without pause.

"Caitlin Clark," she said, while a fan commented that she thought Brink would take home the award. Brink later added that the extra foul granted to WNBA players will be "good for me."

"I hope it’s me," Charisma Osborne, who was later drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, said when asked her ROY prediction. "But, I don’t know — we’ll see."

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