All Scores

Angel City banking on culture to help Alyssa Thompson thrive

Alyssa Thompson poses with Angel City co-founder and president Julie Uhrman after being selected No. 1 in the NWSL Draft. (Courtesy of Angel City Football Club)

If No. 1 draft pick Alyssa Thompson was the most excited person to hear her name called on NWSL draft night, her new Angel City FC teammates might have been a close second.

“Christen [Press] texts me today like, ‘Let me know when we’ve drafted players and I can reach out. I’m excited to have them on board,’” Angel City head coach Freya Coombe told Just Women’s Sports on Thursday, an hour before the Los Angeles club secured the forward of their future.

Thompson’s upside is sky high, with her career trajectory pushing forward almost as fast as the 18-year-old can run a 100-meter sprint. There’s natural risk involved in betting a significant amount of money on a teenager who’s unproven at the higher level, but the NWSL has a strong recent track record with its young players, with 18-year-old Jaedyn Shaw thriving in San Diego and 17-year-old Olivia Moultrie making steady progress with the Portland Thorns. And Thompson already has experience with the U.S. women’s national team, earning her first two caps last fall and making her debut at England’s Wembley Stadium.

Coombe feels Angel City has the locker-room culture necessary for Thompson to feel supported and live up to her potential. To the coach, moments of growth happen not only in conversations off the field but in real-time situations during games.

“I think our culture has been absolutely brilliant, and it’s led by our captain, Ali Riley, who’s absolutely brilliant in terms of how supportive she is,” Coombe said.

“We’ve got players, the informal leaders that will grab any game by the scruff of the neck, like [Savannah McCaskill], and she’s like, ‘Let’s go,’ and she leaves it on the field. I think that’s a great way of protecting the culture, and I’m excited to bring young players into such a great positive culture so that they can grow and flourish.”

For Thompson, who took in the draft with family and friends at a watch party in Los Angeles, Thursday brought an emotional high. The SoCal native, though, had an even-keeled approach to the evening. Thompson might be the NWSL’s newest star, but she’s also still finishing her senior year of high school at Harvard-Westlake Prep.

“I’m like an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ person,” she told Just Women’s Sports. “So before, I wasn’t really thinking about it that much. I was just trying to get through school because I have a bunch of other distractions to keep me busy.”

Growing up in the area, Thompson got a chance to experience Angel City’s inaugural season first as a fan, and she says attending a match got her hooked on the club.

“I think a couple things excite me [about Angel City], but one is just the fans. I think they’re the best in the NWSL,” she said. “I went to a game and they were just super loud, nothing like I’ve ever seen before in a woman’s game.”

The match between player and club might have felt destined, but Angel City had to give up a lot to lock up Thompson’s future in L.A. ACFC sent a total of $450,000 to two separate clubs as part of a three-team trade that secured Angel City the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft, which they used on Thompson.

“It’s a credit to Angela [Hucles] for being able to negotiate and pull off the trade and move all the chess pieces in order to make it happen. So she did a great job,” said Coombe, while acknowledging that the club paid a price for their top draft choice. “There’s always limitations when you’re working with a salary cap, roster caps, international spot caps and everything. I think it’s about prioritizing what you want. And that’s something that the club has shown, that this is a priority for us.”

img
Thompson hears her name called during a draft party with family and friends, including sister Gisele. (Courtesy of Angel City Football Club)

Ultimately, Angel City was willing to take a big swing to select the player they’d set their sights on and to continue to set a financial standard in the league.

“In terms of salaries and everything, we have to start showing our intent,” Coombe said. “I think the quality of the league, we’re attracting players in terms of, they want to come and play in the stadiums that are packed out, they want to come and play at Angel City, they want to go to Kansas City, they want these environments.

“And then we’ve got to be able to pay the money to match it.”

With the pick in and her rookie contract signed, Thompson can now focus on the task at hand. That includes beginning to build a relationship with her future frontline partner and the player she said she’s most excited to play with at Angel City: Christen Press.

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

Katie Ledecky Nears Own 1,500-Meter Freestyle Record at TYR Pro Swim Series

US swimming star Katie Ledecky reacts to her 1500-meter freestyle time on Wednesday.
Katie Ledecky posted her best 1500-meter freestyle time in seven years this week. (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

Star US distance swimmer Katie Ledecky is back to her old tricks, registering her fastest 1,500-meter freestyle in seven years — and the event's second-best time in history — at the 2025 TYR Pro Swim Series in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Wednesday.

The nine-time Olympic gold medalist finished the 30 pool lengths in 15:24.51, just missing the world-record 15:20.48 race time she posted in 2018.

Ledecky now holds the 1,500-meter freestyle's top 22 fastest times in women's swimming history — all of which would have won Wednesday's final race, where she defeated second-place finisher Jillian Cox — a University of Texas freshman — by a full 39 seconds.

Even more, Ledecky didn't slow down after her 1,500-meter performance posting her fastest 400-meter freestyle in nine years the very next day.

In the final lap of the race, the 28-year-old staged a comeback to pass Canadian teenage phenom and 2024 Olympic silver medalist Summer McIntosh and secure the win.

Her time of 3:56.81 just missed the US record of 3:56.46 that Ledecky previously claimed along with a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

"I don't know if I ever thought I was going to be 3:56 again," Ledecky said in her post-race broadcast interview. "I'm just really happy with all the work that I've put in to get to this point."

How to watch Ledecky at the 2025 TYR Pro Swim Series

The 2025 TYR Pro Swim Series continues through Saturday, with Ledecky competing in Friday's 200-meter freestyle final prior to racing in the 800-meter freestyle on Saturday.

Both races will begin at 6 PM ET on their respective days.

Live coverage of the meet will stream on Peacock on Friday before shifting to the USA Swimming Network on Saturday.

English FA Issues Ban on Trans Athletes in Women’s Soccer

The FA "For All" corner flag flies on the pitch before a 2024 international friendly between England and Switzerland.
The Football Association's transgender athlete ban follows a ruling from Britain's highest court. (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)

The English Football Association (FA) announced Thursday that it will ban trans women athletes from playing women's soccer starting with the 2025/26 season, with the governing body's new policy officially going into effect on June 1st.

Previously, the FA allowed trans women athletes to play on women's teams as long as they had "blood testosterone within natal female range."

The move comes after April 16th's landmark ruling from the UK's highest court, which states that gender equality protections only apply to what the court called "biological women" — and that trans women do not legally meet that definition.

The Scottish FA followed suit, also releasing its decision to ban trans women athletes from competitive play on Thursday.

Notably, there are currently no trans women playing anywhere on the UK's professional football pyramid. However, some 72 trans athletes played in FA grassroots matches over the last decade.

Today, an estimated 20 to 30 trans players participate in that growing grassroots system, an initiative created to advance the FA's four "game-changer" priorities — one of which is to "see a game free from discrimination."

“We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game,” the association said in Thursday's statement.

"It is clear these abrupt changes have been made on legal advice following the recent UK Supreme Court ruling, as there remains no football-specific peer-reviewed research or evidence that shows the existing policies constitute a safety risk," stated advocacy group Pride Sports in response. "One consequence of these bans will, inevitably, be a rise in incidents of transphobia in football."

NWSL Teams Shoot for Redemption in Action-Packed Weekend Lineup

San Diego's Hanna Lundkvist, Delphine Cascarino, and Trinity Armstrong celebrate a goal during a 2025 NWSL game.
San Diego is currently fifth in the NWSL standings. (Talia Sprague/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

This weekend's NWSL action features top-table battles, Cinderella hopefuls, and a whole slew of teams hunting redemption wins to open May's league play.

Perched at the top of the NWSL standings, the Kansas City Current sits tied for points with the second-place Orlando Pride, while just four points separate the remaining six teams currently above the postseason cutoff line.

With last week's rollercoaster results setting up redemption arcs for this weekend's slate, the 2025 NWSL season's seventh matchday is full of bounce-back opportunities, a tight race to the top, and a California clash:

  • No. 3 Washington Spirit vs. No. 9 Angel City FC, Friday at 8 PM ET (Prime): Both the Spirit and Angel City are coming off disappointing losses, with once-unbeaten LA slipping out of the Top-8 on a two-match skid. Can either contender regain their early season form?
  • No. 7 Seattle Reign FC vs. No. 1 Kansas City Current, Friday at 10:30 PM ET (Paramount+): The Reign are hanging tough after two weeks of adding points, but they'll face a redemption-hunting Current squad determined to rebound from their first season loss last weekend.
  • No. 6 Portland Thorns vs. No. 2 Orlando Pride, Saturday at 7:30 PM ET (ION): The Thorns have gained points in five of their last six games, and Portland will need all that resilience against a challenging Pride side that's more than capable of mounting their own comebacks.
  • No. 5 San Diego Wave vs. No. 8 Bay FC, Sunday at 8 PM ET (Paramount+): The weekend's marquee matchup pits the Wave — quietly finding their identity under new coach Jonas Eidevall — against Bay FC in a California clash where neither team can afford to lose much ground.

WNBA Stars Head Back to College for Preseason Games

LSU's Hailey Van Lith and Angel Reese high-five during their 2024 Elite Eight NCAA tournament game.
Chicago's Hailey Van Lith and Angel Reese will return to LSU for Friday's WNBA preseason game. (Scott Taetsch/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

It's back-to-school weekend for the WNBA, as teams travel to stars' old collegiate stomping grounds to tip off a series of preseason exhibitions.

While preseason matchups don't carry the same weight as opening day, the league raised the stakes this year to give fans a taste of what's to come during the gap between March Madness and the May 16th 2025 WNBA season tip-off.

Kicking off the preseason party is this year's No. 1 draft pick Paige Bueckers, who will make her professional debut when the Dallas take on Las Vegas on Friday. The showdown will occur at Notre Dame's Purcell Pavilion, as both teams boast Fighting Irish alumni in the Wings' Arike Ogunbowale and the Aces' Jackie Young and Jewell Loyd.

Later on Friday, reunited LSU teammates Angel Reese and Hailey Van Lith will return to the Baton Rouge court when the Chicago Sky tips off against the Brazil Women's National Team.

After facing the Washington Mystics on Saturday, Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever will travel to the 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year's alma mater Iowa for their own date with Brazil on Sunday.

Fever fans will be particularly grateful that Sunday clash will receive national airtime, as resale tickets for the sold-out game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena are averaging upwards of $440 apiece.

To cap off the weekend, Sunday will also see the new-look Connecticut Sun will battle a Seattle Storm squad hungry to jump back into title contention this season.

Though the exhibition results won't matter, testing players in front of a crowd while building excitement for the upcoming 2025 season can be just as crucial for teams as they look to polish their rosters over the next two weeks.

How to watch this weekend's WNBA preseason games

Friday will see the Dallas Wings take on the Las Vegas Aces at 7 PM ET followed by the Chicago Sky's matchup against Brazil at 9 PM ET, with both games airing live on ION.

Indiana's busy weekend begins with Saturday's 1 PM ET clash with Washington on NBA TV before the Fever face Brazil at 4 PM ET on Sunday, airing live on ESPN.

The weekend's final exhibition pits Connecticut against Seattle at 6 PM ET on Sunday, with live coverage available with the WNBA League Pass.

Start your morning off right with Just Women’s Sports’ free, 5x-a-week newsletter.