Athletes Unlimited’s inaugural volleyball season has come to an end, with Jordan Larson winning the season’s MVP award.

  • Larson was a team captain for four out of five weeks of competition. She finished second in kills with 230, but her total player points (4,569) were 879 more than runner-up Bethania de la Cruz.
  • Points were awarded for match wins, individual stats, and match MVP awards, with four captains re-drafting teams each week.

Running it back: Athletes Unlimited has already announced there will be a second season in 2022.

What they’re saying: for many players, getting to play professional volleyball in America was a dream come true. Most have spent their careers playing abroad.

  • Aury Cruz: “It’s kind of sad that once you graduate college you either have to join the corporate world, get a job or play in another country. This is a dream come true, so I definitely knew I had to be a part of it.”
  • Lindsay Stalzer: “It means the world to every girl playing volleyball or has played volleyball in the United States… To have a league of amazing volleyball athletes so visible to young kids, young females, young athletes, even males, I think it’s priceless to have more exposure.”

Go deeper: How volleyball veterans found a home with Athletes Unlimited (Forbes)

Up next: Athletes Unlimited’s inaugural lacrosse season is coming July 2021.

It’s been two weeks since the eyes of the sporting world fell upon the NCAA women’s tournament for all the wrong reasons.

  • While the NCAA has been on an extended apology tour ever since, it’s clear the “issue” isn’t just quietly going away.

It’s more than a weight room: Top coaches in women’s college basketball reportedly grilled Mark Emmert and the NCAA over what they say is years (decades?) of under-investment in the sport.

  • “N.C.A.A. officials had hoped that the public furor around the tournaments would fade, particularly as the competitions advanced to their later rounds,” the New York Times reports, “But N.C.A.A. executives appeared to misjudge the depth of the outrage.”
  • The WBCA is now calling for an independent commission to examine the inequities after the NCAA initially offered to hire a law firm themselves.
  • Dawn Staley told Emmert: “Whoever is paying the piper, you know more than likely they’re going to give you what you want to hear.”

Signs of progress: Monday’s UConn-Baylor showdown doubled the men’s games on social media engagement.

  • But legacy outlets still aren’t doing enough, despite readily piling on the NCAA for its faults.
  • Between March 15-30, only 2% of organic social posts from the biggest sports media outlets referenced the women’s tournament, and nearly half of those posts were about the weight room debacle. (Zoomph)

JWS CEO Haley Rosen says it’s time for the media to look in the mirror.

  • “The NCAA clearly undervalues its female basketball players. But how many media outlets have implicitly told them this is OK, given that they, too, underinvest in covering the women’s game?”
  • “A world in which women’s sports are only given token verticals on websites and irregular media coverage is the same world in which these women are given dumbbells and a yoga mat while their male counterparts receive a fully-equipped weight room.”

The big picture: the audience is there, and they’re showing up on social. It’s time for the NCAA to take notice and for legacy media outlets to hold themselves accountable.

  • Go deeper: read our fearless leader’s full op-ed here.

Barcelona, Chelsea and Bayern are on to the semi-finals of the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

  • Lyon and PSG’s second-leg game was postponed due to six COVID cases within Lyon’s camp. They’ll now play April 17th.

Chelsea crushed Wolfsburg 3-0 on Wednesday to win 5-1 on aggregate.

  • Pernille Harder, Fran Kirby and Sam Kerr all found the back of the net.
  • Kerr has now grabbed seven goals and two assist in her last five games for Chelsea. Seems like the all-time leading scorer in both NWSL and W-League history has found her stride in England.

Manchester City beat Barcelona 2-1, but it wasn’t enough to overcome their first-leg deficit, as Barcelona advanced 4-2 on aggregate.

  • Sam Mewis continued to shine, however, scoring a penalty in the 68’ minute, her fourth goal in five games.

Bayern, meanwhile, cruised past Rosengård in both games, winning 4-0 on aggregate while outshooting their opponents 25-10.

Up next: Semi-finals begin May 1st.

  • Chelsea will play Bayern, while Barcelona will face off against the winner of Lyon/PSG.

Major League Baseball is back, making it a great time to remember Jackie Mitchell, who in 1931 struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession. (The stars are seen above watching Mitchell pitch.)

The backdrop: the New York Yankees were passing through Chattanooga, Tennessee as part of an exhibition tour to play the Chattanooga Lookouts.

  • The Yankees, at the time, were the best team in baseball, and would go on to set the Major League record for runs scored in a season that year.
  • Joe Engel, the president and owner of the Lookouts, had signed 17-year-old Jackie Mitchell to his squad as part of a publicity stunt after seeing her pitch at a baseball camp.
  • Mitchell’s neighbor growing up was Dazzy Vance, a Hall of Fame pitcher who taught the promising leftie how to throw a wicked sinker.

The game: Mitchell was called into action on April 2nd after the Lookouts’ first pitcher gave up back-to-back hits. The first batter she faced was “The Sultan of Swat.”

  • Babe Ruth took a ball, then swung and missed on two of Mitchell’s sinkers. Her fourth pitch was called a third strike, leading Ruth to verbally abuse the umpire before his teammates pulled him away.
  • Lou Gehrig was up next, swinging and missing on his first three pitches. Mitchell had officially struck out two of the greatest players in the history of the sport.

The aftermath: it wasn’t great!

  • Babe Ruth told the local paper that women were “too delicate” to play baseball everyday.
  • Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis also voided Mitchell’s contract while declaring baseball was “too strenuous” for women.
  • Mitchell continued to play professionally, however, barnstorming the country with other men’s teams. She ultimately retired at age 23 after growing tired of being treated like a sideshow.

Mitchell died in 1987, but not before delivering an incredible quote about her 1931 performance.

  • “Hell, better hitters than them couldn’t hit me. Why should they be any different?”

Go deeper: listen to a Legendary Bites episode covering Mitchell’s exploits.

Only eight teams are left in the 2021 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Five of the top eight teams are still standing, while Texas, Arizona and Indiana all look to continue their upset runs.

The Elite Eight starts tonight. Here’s who’s playing and when and how to watch:

Monday:

  • No. 2 Baylor vs No. 1 UConn: 7:00pm ET on ESPN.
  • No. 4 Indiana vs No. 3 Arizona: 9:00pm ET on ESPN.

Tuesday:

  • No. 6 Texas vs No. 1 South Carolina: 7:00pm ET on ESPN.
  • No. 2 Louisville vs No. 1 Stanford: 9:00pm ET on ESPN.

The Sweet Sixteen is set for the 2021 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. For the third straight tournament, the top eight seeds have all advanced. But there’s still a few upstarts looking to make some noise.

Here’s who’s playing and when and how to watch:

Saturday:

  • No. 5 Iowa vs No. 1 UConn: 1:00pm ET on ABC.
  • No. 6 Michigan vs No. 2 Baylor: 3:00pm ET on ABC.
  • No. 4 Indiana vs No. 1 NC State: 6:00pm ET on ESPN2.
  • No. 3 Arizona vs No. 2 Texas A&M: 8:00pm ET on ESPN2.

Sunday:

  • No. 5 Georgia Tech vs No. 1 South Carolina: 1:00pm ET on ABC.
  • No. 5 Missouri State vs No. 1 Stanford: 3:00pm ET on ABC.
  • No. 6 Oregon vs No. 2 Louisville: 7:00pm ET on ESPN.
  • No. 6 Texas vs No. 2 Maryland: 8:00pm ET on ESPN2.

The 2021 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament bracket is officially here.

64 teams are now heading to Texas in order to embark on one of the most ambitious sporting endeavors since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Stanford, UConn, South Carolina and North Carolina state were all awarded No. 1 seeds. It’s NC State’s first time as a top seed, and they are the only No. 1 to have never won a national championship.

The Huskies will be without coach Geno Auriemma through at least the first two rounds, as the coach tested positive for COVID on Sunday. He’s now in isolation and will have to wait until March 24th to rejoin his squad.

UConn is set to face No. 16 High Point on March 21st. If they win, their second-round game will be on March 23rd.

Auriemma has not had any close contact with any other team member since Friday, and all Tier I personnel have so far tested negative for COVID-19, according to the school.

Last year, the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA tournament marked the start of several sports-less months. This year, tournament organizers are hoping that a semi-bubble environment will help them play 63 games in 15 days across five different sites, all within or near the San Antonio area.

Daily testing for the tournament began last week, and while the NCAA is hoping to maintain a virus-free environment, they also have teams on standby if a tournament squad is forced to drop out.

The four regions are named after San Antonio landmarks. Stanford is the top seed in the Alamo Regional, UConn in the River Walk Regional, South Carolina in the Hemisfair Regional, and NC State in the Mercado Regional.

The four No. 2 seeds are Louisville (Alamo), Baylor (River Walk), Maryland (Hemisfair) and Texas A&M (Mercado).

The bracket was announced on ESPN, and the ESPN network will cover every game of the tournament, beginning this Sunday at noon ET.

Happy New Year’s, squad. We don’t need to tell you that 2020 was the worst. But in a tough year for everyone, and a bumpy year for sports, the world’s best and brightest still found a way to break records, win trophies, lead movements, and inspire fans.

So while we’re all ready to wave 2020 goodbye, here are 20 things that happened in women’s sports that didn’t totally suck.

1. The WNBA signed a groundbreaking CBA

It’s hard to remember now, but the year got off to a sparkling start when the WNBA announced a historic new Collective Bargaining Agreement. With a significant salary bump, fully-paid maternity leave, improved travel arrangements, increased investments in marketing, and a future 50-50 revenue split, the new eight-year CBA was not just a momentous achievement for the league and its players, but a watershed moment in women’s sports.

2. And the Wubble rewrote the athlete-activist script

There will never be another “Wubble” (we hope). But what the players did this season inside their Florida bubble changed sports forever. From a season-opening moment of silence in honor of Breonna Taylor, to a nationally-aired roundtable on politics and race, the W made social justice an integral part of its season. Players wore jerseys honoring victims of racial violence, endorsed a US Senate candidate, and spearheaded voter registration campaigns, all while putting on a show on the hardwood, night in and night out.

3. They weren’t alone in answering the call

Athletes everywhere found their voices this summer. Sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, protests against racial injustice spread from the streets of Minneapolis to the tennis courts of New York, with female athletes everywhere leading the charge. Many, like Coco Gauff and Simone Manuel, spoke out at rallies and through social media. Others, like Olympic hammer thrower Gwen Berry, were vindicated after being punished for protesting earlier in their careers. Together, they reset the expectations of what athletes can do.

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4. Naomi Osaka talked the talk, walked the walk

One of those athletes who rose to the moment was Naomi Osaka, the once-reticent superstar who in 2020 transformed herself into an outspoken activist. Osaka first led a player strike at the Western & Southern Open before winning the US Open while donning a series of seven masks, each one honoring a Black American killed by police or in an act of racial profiling. Osaka said ahead of time she needed to win every match to present every mask, and she did just that, claiming her third major title in three years while reaffirming her status as tennis’ best young player.

5. Women’s sports bucked the trend 

Sports viewership was down everywhere this year—everywhere, that is, except women’s sports. The NWSL became the first major team sports league to return to play, staging a Covid-free Challenge Cup en route to a 500% increase in television viewership on the year. WNBA regular season viewership was likewise up 68% for the regular season, while Athletes Unlimited brought softball to television, and NBC picked up FAWSL games from across the pond. In a year when sports viewership was down everywhere else, women’s sports showed up and showed out.

6. The Houston Dash won a trophy

The Challenge Cup was one small step for team sports, one giant leap for the Houston Dash. The oft-derided underdogs from H-Town played with a Texas-sized chip on their shoulders for most of the Cup, winning the club’s first-ever major trophy before double-fisting Budweisers in a celebration fit for Queens.

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7. Kristie Mewis won the year

Her post-Challenge Cup shenanigans sent the internet into a tizzy (see above), while her remarkable return to the USWNT after more than six years away had many of us in tears. No athlete better encapsulated the meaning of perseverance in 2020 than Kristie Mewis, whose 2,722 days between USWNT goals was both a national team record and the epitome of grit.

8. Sabrina Ionescu cemented her status as triple-double queen

Her first WNBA season might have been cut short by injury, but let’s not forget all that Ionescu did in 2020. Already the NCAA’s all-time leader in triple doubles, she became the first college basketball player ever (men’s or women’s) to collect 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists in a career—on the very same day she spoke at the memorial service for her mentor Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna.

9. A’ja Wilson made the leap 

We all knew A’ja Wilson was going to be a WNBA superstar. We just didn’t know when. But in year three, the 24-year-old made the leap, winning league MVP en route to leading the Las Vegas Aces to the WNBA Finals. Watching her and Breanna Stewart first duel for the MVP and then for the title, it’s safe to say the league is in very good hands.

10. Christine Sinclair scored goal No. 185

Canadian legend Christine Sinclair etched her name into the history books this January when she scored international goal No. 185 at the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament, passing Abby Wambach for the most all-time. At 37 years old, Sinclair is the most-capped international footballer playing today (with 296 national team appearances), and is still going strong heading into next summer’s Olympics.

11. Sarah Fuller kicked her way into history

The feel-good story of the year was none other than Vanderbilt kicker Sarah Fuller. First, she led the Commodores soccer team to their first SEC Tournament title since 1994. A week later, she became the first woman to play in a Power Five conference football game when she kicked off for the Vanderbilt team. Two weeks later, she knocked home two PATs to become the first woman to score in a Power Five game, inspiring countless fans while expertly laying waste to the trolls of Twitter.

12. We started a podcast!

We’re going to throw ourselves a high-five for this one. The Just Women’s Sports podcast debuted at #1 in sports and #16 overall, and just 20 episodes in, we’re cruising past 750,000 downloads at last check. This wouldn’t be possible without all you faithful listeners. Thank you, thank you, thank you—and rest assured, more pods are coming in 2021.

13. Alex Morgan became a mom 

Our very first podcast guest was none other than Alex Morgan, USWNT superstar and, as of May, a first-time mom. Her daughter Charlie accompanied Morgan abroad as she suited up for Tottenham Hotspur this fall, where the two-time World Cup champ barely missed a beat in her return to play. Recording two goals in five appearances for the club, Morgan is on track to lead the USWNT in Tokyo next summer.

14. Sue Bird got two rings

In a year of surprises, Sue Bird reminded us that some things never change. At 40 years old, she’s still one of the best floor generals in the WNBA, leading the Seattle Storm to their fourth league title inside the WNBA bubble while also playing a pivotal role in the league’s social justice efforts. Adding to her jewelry collection, Sue Bird also got engaged to fellow superstar Megan Rapinoe. Name a more anticipated post-Covid wedding. Spoiler alert, you can’t.

15. Cat Osterman proved age is just a number 

Pitching legend Cat Osterman likewise spent 2020 proving that age is just a number. After coming out of retirement in 2018 in the hopes of earning a spot on Team USA, Osterman casually pitched her way to the first-ever Athletes Unlimited individual title, fanning a good number of players who grew up watching Osterman play. 37 years old and still the best in the world, Osterman is on a mission to win Olympic gold in Tokyo.

16. April Ross and Alix Klineman showed they’re Olympic-ready

In a condensed season, Ross and Klineman swept the three-tournament AVP Champions Cup, winning all 12 of their matches over three weekends of competition. After winning bronze with Kerri Walsh Jennings in 2016, Ross and her new partner now look poised to enter next summer’s Olympics as the favorites to take home gold.

17. The NWSL announced not one, but two expansions

Already the longest-running professional women’s soccer league ever in the U.S., the NWSL looks poised to achieve even greater heights as it expands its footprint with two additional clubs. Racing Louisville FC will begin play in 2021, while Angel City FC, led by a superstar ownership featuring Natalie Portman, Alexis Ohanian, Serena Williams, and many others, will kick off in 2022. High-profile investors signal a new era of growth for the NWSL, and you better believe we’re ready for take off.

18. The LPGA proved its future is already here

All four 2020 LPGA majors were won by first-time major winners. Sophia Popov’s British Open win may have been the most unique, as the 304th-ranked player had been caddying for a friend just a few weeks before, but in each of the year’s majors, the LPGA’s parity was on display. As the year concludes, eight of the top ten ranked players are 27 or younger, and the future of the tour has never looked brighter.

19. Vivianne Miedema put the football world on notice

Speaking of future superstars: at 24 years old, Vivianne Miedema has already scored more international goals (70) for the Netherlands than any other player before her, on either the women’s or men’s teams. And this year, she became the all-time leading goalscorer in FA Women’s Super League history, with 53 goals (and counting) in only 55 appearances for Arsenal. Look for the Dutch striker to be a star at next summer’s Olympics.

20. Tara VanDerveer won game No. 1099

With a 104-61 win over Pacific on December 15th, longtime Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer passed the Pat Summitt for the most victories in Division I history. It may have come in an empty gym, but nothing could diminish the importance of VanDerveer’s achievement. “I really hope Pat Summitt is looking down and saying, ‘Good job, Tara. Keep it going,'” said VanDerveer after the game. With Stanford 7-0 and ranked No. 1, VanDerveer looks ready to add to her tally as well as her trophy case in 2021.

2021: ONE BIG THING
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2020 is over. But as we look back on a year like no other, it seems only right to take a peek at what’s to come, and no sporting event in 2021 will be bigger than the Tokyo Olympics.

Next summer’s Olympics will provide the first opportunity for the world to come together since the pandemic began. No matter what happens, it’s bound to be historic, with so many pre-Olympics storylines already swirling. What will organizers do to keep everyone safe? How will athletes use the stage to drive social change, especially after the US said there will be no punishments for protesting?

And then there’s the question of who wins all the medals.

Needless to say, there will be drama, exultation, disappointment and relief, and Just Women’s Sports will be there to cover it all. Be sure to keep your eyes (and ears) peeled this winter and spring, as we’ll be rolling out special coverage starting in January. And trust us, you won’t want to miss what we’ve got cooking up.

On Wednesday, a Kentucky grand jury indicted a single police officer with three counts of wanton endangerment in connection with the shooting of Breonna Taylor, who was killed at home by police in March.

Athletes have demanded for months that all three officers involved be arrested. The WNBA dedicated its season to Taylor and has made her name and story a prominent fixture of its 2020 campaign. Players wore jerseys with Taylor’s name on the back, as well as warm-up shirts that said “Say Her Name.”

The outcry on Wednesday in reaction to the grand jury’s decision was both swift and decisive.

Sophia Smith, the No. 1 pick in last year’s NWSL draft, scored a stunning header in her NWSL debut as the Portland Thorns cruised past the Utah Royals 3-0.

Smith missed the NWSL Challenge Cup due to a knee injury. Sunday’s game was both her first in a Thorns uniform, as well as the team’s first game in Providence Park in nearly a year. An earlier game against OL Reign had to be rescheduled due to poor air quality from the forest fires.

Smith came on as a second half substitute, scoring in the 73rd minute off a Meghan Klingenberg cross.

Smith left college early after leading the Stanford Cardinal to an NCAA championship last year. She made history as the first ever teenager to be selected in the NWSL draft. (Read our interview with Smith following the draft here.)

Simone Charley opened the scoring for Portland in the 35th minute with a sensational individual run through the Royals defense. Lindsey Horan later added a third in the 81st minute.

Seeing those three find the back of the net, and spotting USWNT legend Becky Sauerbrunn rocking a Portland jersey in Providence Park for the first time, had to leave Thorns fans giddy about what’s to come. Like owner Merritt Paulson, they’re also likely hoping that they’ll get to see the next Sophia Smith goal in person.