No American striker has ever had quite a first professional year like Mia Fishel just had.

The 21-year-old UCLA product made initial waves when she decided not to join the Orlando Pride, the NWSL team that drafted her fifth overall and at the time was led by Fishel’s former college coach, Amanda Cromwell.

Her destination also raised some eyebrows. Fishel signed with UANL Tigres of Liga MX Femenil, joining a small but growing group of foreign-born players to make the leap to Mexico. Tigres were already four-time champions of the league founded in 2016.

When Fishel moved to Monterrey, she appeared to step away from certain pressures while adopting brand-new ones. Liga MX Femenil is a fast, technical and highly entertaining league in which young strikers tend to thrive.

Tigres had made a few high-profile moves prior to Fishel’s signing, sending Katty Martínez to Club America and losing Maria Sánchez to the NWSL’s Houston Dash. After missing the final of the 2022 Clausura season for just the second time in club history, Tigres also brought in a new head coach, former Canada international Carmelina Moscato. Despite the changes, Tigres entered the 2022 Apertura with high expectations, and Fishel was going to have to deliver.

The striker did that and more, becoming the first foreign-born player to win the league’s Golden Boot with 17 goals. For comparison, no NWSL rookie has ever won the Golden Boot in their first year, though Lynn Williams did earn the honor in her second season in 2016. And only two NWSL players — Williams and Ashley Hatch — have ever won the Golden Boot and a title in the same year.

So, when Fishel and Tigres hoisted the trophy on Monday night after a 3-0 aggregate win over Club America, there was reason to celebrate the history. Fishel had made the leap to a new country with a different culture and style of play, and she helped deliver a title, with tens of thousands of fans in the stands and almost three million watching at home.

All of that makes Fishel’s lack of involvement with the U.S. women’s national senior team somewhat confounding as evidence mounts that she, at the very least, deserves a look at the international level. The U.S., while missing several talented forwards due to injury, has held a roster spot for teenager Alyssa Thompson in the last two international windows, but not Fishel.

The Concacaf W Championship this summer required stricter roster rules (though Fishel did not feature on the provisional list for that tournament, either). But when it comes to friendlies, the USWNT makes its own camp rules. In August, head coach Vlatko Andonovski said that Fishel’s resume didn’t yet warrant a roster spot.

“We do follow her form and her performances, but I also have to say that there are a lot of players in the NWSL that are performing as good and even better than Mia,” he said then.

¡¡G⚽⚽⚽L!!!

Apareció la Campeona de Goleo. 👑
🐟Mia Fishel empató el marcador en el BBVA.#VamosPorEllas👊🏼 | 📹#NoTeLoPierdas pic.twitter.com/zbwHAEG0nZ

— LigaBBVAFemenil (@LigaBBVAFemenil) November 8, 2022

As Fishel has continued to produce in the Mexican league, Andonovski’s messaging has also slowly evolved.

“Mia is on our depth chart and is … I wouldn’t be wouldn’t be able to say where she’s at,” he told reporters following the release of the roster for the October friendlies. “We’re monitoring her form and her performances. I had a very good conversation with her, and she understands where she’s at.”

In November, the conversations about Fishel from inside the U.S. camp were even more positive, even though she again did not feature on the roster.

“I had a conversation with Mia, and she is someone we’ve followed, certainly someone we keep an eye on. We’re happy for her success down there. She did a really good job,” Andonovski said.

“At the same time, she understands the competition that is on the national team and the players she is competing against. She’s patiently waiting for her opportunity. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see her in a future camp.”

Andonovski’s evolving stance is an indication of Fishel’s hard work paying off, but questions remain about what it takes to get a look at a U.S. team that has obvious gaps to fill, even if only in the short term. Only two players who have been consistently in USWNT camps in recent months play outside the NWSL — Catarina Macario and Lindsey Horan of Olympique Lyon — though the coaching staff says that is not necessarily a factor.

Liga MX Femenil is still a young league, but it takes steps forward in competition and global recruiting with every passing year. And the USWNT has a talented prospect making history right in front of them.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LPGA Tour (@lpga_tour)

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

"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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

"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."

Watch more of Kelley on the Street: