With the first week of Athletes Unlimited Volleyball Season 2 complete, Week 2 begins Wednesday night with some fresh faces atop the leaderboard.

The first week delivered plenty of action and movement as players adjusted to the beginning of the season. Bethania De La Cruz currently sits second on the leaderboard with 800 points, 28 points behind newcomer Dani Drews.

Natalia Valentin-Anderson is in third place with 667 points, while Drews’ fellow rookie Lauren Stivrins is fourth with 660.

The competition is tight among the top 10, with Sheilla Castro sitting just six points out of a captain’s spot with 654 points. While Drews and De La Cruz are ahead of the competition by at least 100 points, the degree of separation between the remaining eight players is slim. A total of 92 points separates third place from 10th, meaning that it’s anybody’s game in Week 2.

Just Women’s Sports has a few storylines to follow as the competition gets underway Wednesday.

Can the newcomers keep it rolling?

There were questions in Week 1 about how Drews and Stivrins would fare against stiff competition. The answer? Quite well.

After being selected first overall in the Week 1 draft, Drews overtook fellow outside hitter Bethania De La Cruz for the league lead with 828 total points. Among her Week 1 highlights was a 410-point performance in Game 5. Drews will need to keep it up to hold off De La Cruz, who’s only 28 points behind her and has the potential to break out at any point.

Stivrins, meanwhile, grabbed the fourth and final captain’s spot with 660 points while on Team De La Cruz. She had a solid performance in Game 2, racking up 308 total points off of eight kills, four blocks and three digs. She sits just six points ahead of Sheilla Castro, who will be looking to make the jump while playing for Team De La Cruz this week.

Valentin-Anderson also had a strong first week with AU, highlighted by a 294-point, 43-assist performance in Game 5. She currently leads the league with 107 total assists.

While all three newcomers had a good Week 1, they also were not charged with selecting their teammates. This week, each of them took a first stab at the Athletes Unlimited draft. Their volleyball knowledge will be tested, and their decisions could lead to some shifting on the leaderboard.

What about Sheilla Castro?

After finishing 19th on the leaderboard last season with 2,350 points, Castro is off to a hot start with 654 total points in Week 1. That number is over a quarter of her total production last season and, if she continues on the same pace, she could improve upon last season’s performance by nearly 1,000 points.

She could also make a run at a captain’s spot, as she currently sits just six points behind Stivrins in fourth place and 13 points behind Valentin-Anderson in third place.

Big time players make big time plays.@sheillacastro | #AUVB pic.twitter.com/DVLFgxRrrL

— Athletes Unlimited (@AUProSports) March 19, 2022

Already, Castro has bettered at least one of her performances from last season, recording 11 digs in Game 5,after tying last season’s high the night before with 10. She’s also excelled on her serve, recording four total serving aces, tying her for the lead.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist for Brazil, Castro has experience in high-pressure situations and will be one to watch out for in the weeks to come.

What will it take for Bethania De La Cruz to overtake the top spot?

In short, not a lot. De La Cruz bested her Week 1 totals from last year by 50 points. If she stays on track, she could increase her point total by over 300 points. While Drews got better as the games went on, De La Cruz was more consistent in her point scoring.

De La Cruz also has a high ceiling, having set AU career highs of 21 kills and 13 digs in a single game. Her highest kill total was 13 against Team Lowe, and she matched her dig total with 13 against Team Cruz.

Look for it to be a battle between the two as Athletes Unlimited enters its second week. De La Cruz could have a slight advantage given its experience with the AU draft system. She also has Sheilla Castro as the only carryover from her Week 1 team, and she will be looking to make a run at a captain’s spot of her own. But De La Cruz lost Lauren Stivrins to a captain’s spot and will be working with an entirely new group of players, which could lend Drews the advantage.

Emma Hruby is an associate editor at Just Women’s Sports.

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

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.