Editor’s note: This is the third in a five-part series previewing the top five girls basketball players in the Class of 2023. The series counts down to No. 1 and aligns with the start of the 2022-23 high school season. Click here to see the latest rankings from the Class of 2023. Counting down: No. 5 Hannah Hidalgo | No. 4 Aalyah Del Rosario | No. 3 Jadyn Donovan | No. 2 Juju Watkins | No. 1 Mikaylah Williams.

The prospect of leadership can be daunting.

At a girls’ basketball program like Sidwell Friends School (Washington, D.C.), the reigning SCI national champion, the standard is high. The Quakers earned the title of the nation’s best team during last year’s undefeated campaign led by Kiki Rice, the reigning JWS high school basketball Player of the Year and Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year.

Some athletes might rely solely on their court performances to guide their teams to victory, when stepping into the shoes of star players before you requires so much more.

But that isn’t the type of player Sidwell Friends produces. That isn’t Jadyn Donovan.

The two-time gold medalist uses her length, athleticism and red-hot shot to keep any matchup competitive. As a junior at Sidwell Friends, Donovan averaged 15.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.3 steals per game. She’s a vocal leader with an understanding of what her team needs from her on and off the court.

Donovan, a 6-foot guard, has already made her mark at Sidwell Friends, and she has one final season at the high school level to build upon her legacy.

Coach’s analysis

Tamika Dudley, the reigning Naismith High School Coach of the Year, leads the charge for the Quakers as they look to reach similar heights this season with Donovan as the centerpiece.

“Her athletic ability is unmatched,” Dudley said. “There’s not a girl in the country right now — I don’t care what class — that’s as athletic as she is. Her ability to finish around the rim and her mid-range shot, it’s remarkable.”

Sidwell Friends returns four starters, all of whom are ranked in the top-100 in their respective classes, but a repeat of last year’s historic success isn’t promised.

“It’s about how the team comes together and how we can get them to buy into the rules,” Dudley said. “Hopefully, [Donovan] will pick up where Kiki left off, in terms of leading by example, helping our young kids assimilate to our culture and our way of doing things.

“I think Jadyn leads in her own way. We’re not looking for the same thing; we’re just looking for leadership to affirm or reassure who we are.”

When she arrived at Sidwell Friends, Donovan was used to playing in the post. Dudley and her coaching staff worked to shift Donovan’s position to where she felt most natural, which was on the perimeter.

“In our program, she was a unicorn,” Dudley said. “We were able to get her to focus on playing the game the right way and get her out of her comfort zone. We evolved her to the perimeter. We focused on putting her in those uncomfortable positions on offense.

“Just getting her to be more disciplined and refined was one of the focuses of her development.”

Catching up

Donovan spent her second consecutive gold-medal summer with Team USA, this year starting five of seven games for the U17 national team in Debrecen, Hungary. While averaging just over 19 minutes per game, she contributed 10.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game.

Nobody on the team shot better than Donovan, who was 32 of 53 from the field throughout the tournament.

In August, Donovan announced her commitment to play for coach Kara Lawson at Duke, where she will remain close to home and pursue a degree from one of the nation’s top universities. The first recruit in Duke’s 2023 class, she chose the Blue Devils over Notre Dame. She is also the highest-ranked Duke recruit since the hiring of Lawson, who spent her freshman year of high school playing for the Quakers.

CAMERON HERE WE COME!😈#karaera #thesisterhood pic.twitter.com/Pr53t7djkZ

— JD2 (@DonovanJadyn) August 23, 2022

Donovan will continue to build her brand after signing with agency SIG Sports in early October.

Caroline Makauskas is a contributing writer for Just Women’s Sports. She also covers a variety of sports on her TikTok @cmakauskas. Follow her on Twitter @cmakauskas.

No. 2-seed Oklahoma won their third NCAA gymnastics championship in four years on Saturday, topping fellow finalists No. 4 Utah, No. 5 UCLA, and No. 7 Missouri with an overall score of 198.0125.

With seven titles since 2014, Oklahoma regains its reputation as the sport's current dynasty, finishing atop the podium after falling short of a three-peat last year.

"Our theme wasn't redemption this year at all," Oklahoma head coach K.J. Kindler told reporters after Saturday's victory.

"Does it make it sweet? Yes, but this team was capable of this last year. We just failed. And people fail all the time. They fail every day. And we talk about [it] all the time that the glory is in getting back up again."

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Freedom allowed Oklahoma to reclaim NCAA gymnastics crown

Last year, the then-defending champion Sooners stumbled in a shocking loss in the national semifinals, a fate the 2024 champion LSU squad similarly suffered last Thursday, when the top-seeded Tigers failed to advance to the final meet of 2025.

Between overcoming the semifinals hurdles themselves and seeing LSU ousted — arguably Oklahoma's biggest competition entering the weekend — the Sooners were able to breathe easier and enjoy their last competition of the season.

"After advancing, and we got to today, we were free," said senior Audrey Davis. "We had no weight on our shoulders. We were free to do our best gymnastics."

That freedom had the Sooners leading the charge, finishing their first rotation on beam tied with eventual runners-up UCLA before taking full control of the meet — Oklahoma grabbed a second-rotation lead on the floor and never relinquished it.

As for the rest of the field, Missouri earned a program-record third-place finish in their first-ever NCAA final, while nine-time champions Utah closed their season in fourth.

For Oklahoma senior Jordan Bowers, the final weekend of her collegiate career was one for the books.

In addition to the team title, Bowers won the individual all-around competition during Thursday's semifinals — a day that also crowned LSU’s Kailin Chio (vault), Missouri’s Helen Hu (beam), and UCLA's Jordan Chiles (uneven bars) and Brooklyn Moors (floor) as national apparatus champions.

"Just truly a fairytale ending," Bowers said on the ABC broadcast. "I'm so freaking proud of this team, and I'm so proud to be a Sooner."

Stanford shattered the NCAA softball attendance record this weekend, welcoming 13,207 fans inside the university’s football stadium for Saturday's "Big Swing"  game against Cal.

In the most-attended non-football contest in Stanford Athletics' history, the Cardinal softball crowd surpassed the sport's previous attendance record of 12,566, set on the first day of the 2024 Women's College World Series (WCWS) in Oklahoma City.

The history-making game also blew past the NCAA softball regular-season record of 9,259 fans, a feat reached less than two weeks ago when reigning champions Oklahoma defeated local rivals Oklahoma State on April 9th.

"It was kind of like a mini College World Series experience," Stanford junior outfielder Kyra Chan said after the game.

Despite dropping the record-breaking matchup 10-8 to their new ACC rivals, No. 16 Stanford ultimately secured the three-game series against the Golden Bears with wins on Thursday and Friday.

Friday's 9-3 victory was particularly impactful, clinching the Cardinal a spot in their first-ever ACC championship tournament next month — the first postseason stop as Stanford hunts a third-straight appearance in the WCWS semifinals.

Stanford softball fuels argument for larger women's sports venues

Softball isn't the only sport leading the recent surge in record-breaking NCAA women's sports crowds.

After shifting a volleyball match into its football stadium in August 2023, Nebraska welcomed not just the sport's biggest crowd, but the largest to ever attend any women's sporting event in the US.

Shortly thereafter, Iowa's "Crossover at Kinnick" blasted through the NCAA women's basketball attendance mark by moving an exhibition game featuring the Caitlin Clark-led Hawkeyes into the university's football venue.

Though the move to massive football stadiums was intentional to snag both Nebraska's and Iowa's respective records, Stanford's venue shift was not initially an attendance-hunting move.

The Cardinal's entire 2025 softball season is being played on the gridiron as the team's new $50 million stadium and state-of-the-art training facility is under construction.

Taking advantage of that added capacity was a no-brainer, with Stanford specifically branding and marketing their rivalry "Big Swing" game to capitalize on their temporary digs — and to continue making the overall case for expanding women's sports' venues.

"I think that you see a consistent theme that there aren't big enough venues for women's sports to be able to draw the fans that they can draw," Stanford softball head coach Jessica Allister pointed out.

"Hopefully, a lot of people who showed up to Stanford for the first time to watch a softball game will come back and see us in our beautiful stadium."

The Washington Spirit scored another unlikely victory on Saturday, snapping the Orlando Pride's 22-game home unbeaten streak with a narrow 1-0 win — fueled by newly signed Nigerian striker Gift Monday's debut NWSL goal.

"We knew it was going to be a fight," Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury said after the game. "We know they're physical, so we came [and] we matched that."

Washington continues to eke out wins despite a depleted roster, with a full 11 players unavailable for Saturday’s 2024 NWSL championship rematch due to injury.

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At the top of that injury list is star forward Trinity Rodman, with the 22-year-old's agent telling The Washington Post that she's "taking time away from team activities" to meet with a club doctor in London about her lingering back issues.

Other noteworthy absences to the Spirit's current lineup include 2024 NWSL Rookie and Midfielder of the Year Croix Bethune (hip), defensive midfielder Hal Hershfelt (ankle), veteran defender Casey Krueger (knee), and French forward Ouleye Sarr (SEI – back).

Washington, however, continues finding ways to win, with the Spirit sitting third in the league standings, where they're tied with second-place Orlando on points.

That said, despite flipping the script against the reigning champs, the Spirit's roster woes — and, in particular, Rodman’s uncertain timeline — casts a shadow over the club's 2025 redemption tour.

Kansas City rises atop the NWSL

Also benefitting from the Spirit's win was the Kansas City Current, who used both Washington's victory and their own comfortable 2-0 result against the 10th-place Houston Dash on Saturday to leapfrog the Pride and claim first place on the NWSL table.

With five wins in as many matchdays, the Current are now the league's only undefeated team remaining this season.

After a red-hot start to the 2025 NWSL season, Angel City saw their unbeaten streak squashed by a Gotham side that defeated the LA club 4-0 on Friday.

Failing to register a single shot on target against the NJ/NY club, ACFC's loss dropped their goal differential to -1, dropping the team to fifth on the NWSL table despite sitting tied with the now fourth-place Gotham on points.

Angel City's unexpected moonshot in the season's first four matchdays is still a strong sign for the 2022 expansion club, but Friday’s stumble underlines just how much more progress they’ll look to make under incoming manager Alexander Straus.

"We have a really young squad right now," said Angel City captain Sarah Gorden following the game. "And we just played a really experienced team. This is part of the process, and it's part of a long season."

Gotham snags momentum with second major 2025 win

Bolstered by star forward Midge Purce's return — not to mention a brace from striker Esther — Saturday's win returned 2024 NWSL semifinalist Gotham to the league's upper echelon following an offseason roster overhaul and a mediocre 2025 season start.

Along with a victory over North Carolina last week, the NJ/NY club now holds significant season momentum with their two straight statement wins.

"We've been working very hard in training, and it's showing in the matches," said Esther. "Everyone is giving their all, and we're really united as a group."

Ultimately, while Angel City’s growing pains were perhaps inevitable, Gotham’s sudden surge after a slow start is shaking up the NWSL standings.