Ashlynn Shade, the 5-foot-9 pride of Noblesville High School (Ind.), was already on “cloud nine” Saturday night when the tweet hit her newsfeed. 

Shade had just scored 31 points, tied for a 4A state title game record, to lead the No. 21 Millers to a 76-52 win over Franklin Community in the championship game, and the basketball world had taken notice — including Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers’ newest acquisition.

Ashlynn Shade is nice!

— Tyrese Haliburton (@TyHaliburton22) February 27, 2022

“Seeing that,” Shade said, “(put me) on another level.”

Shade’s performance in front of thousands of fans at Gainbridge Field House — Haliburton’s new home court — helped her earn JWS Player of the Week honors, but it was hardly out of character for the guard.

The UConn commit is a 5-star recruit, per ESPN, and the No. 5-ranked player in the Class of 2023. She finished the season averaging 20.9 points, 8.3 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 3.7 steals per game, but her impact goes far beyond the box score.

Shade has helped create unprecedented excitement around girls’ basketball at Noblesville. Within minutes of tickets going on sale for the championship game, coach Donna Buckley said the Millers’ student section had sold out and fans were searching for ways to buy seats in other teams’ sections.

Shade is the kind of player best experienced in person, with her singular combination of speed, ferocity and agility.

“She’s a once-in-a-lifetime kid,” Buckley said.

Her father, Matt, is a personal trainer, and from a young age she was in the gym working on functional movements like squat jumps, push-ups and pull-ups. Her athleticism allows her to score from anywhere on the court, but it’s her mid-range game that gives her the most pride.

“In today’s game, it’s a lot of layups and 3s,” Shade said. “My mid-range game separates me.”

Buckley often positions Shade on the block, and that’s exactly where she was at the start of the fourth quarter to kill Franklin Community’s momentum. The Grizzly Cubs had cut the Millers’ lead to 10, but Shade made sure the run ended there, scoring amid fierce defensive pressure and drawing the foul. Once she converted the and-1, Buckley said it felt like Shade had “stolen Franklin’s soul.”

That was a common feeling among Noblesville’s opponents this season. The Millers were the only team to defeat Homestead, the Fort Wayne, Ind. power led by senior Ayanna Patterson, a McDonald’s All-American and Shade’s future UConn teammate. Noblesville won both games by 21 points, including the teams’ playoff bout on Feb. 12.

While Patterson heads off to Connecticut soon, Shade will get one more season to leave her mark at the high school level. She is on pace to score more than 2,300 points in her career, and Buckley feels fortunate to be along for the ride.

“I’ve never,” Buckley said, “seen anyone quite like her.”

Josh Needelman is the High School Sports Editor at Just Women’s Sports. Follow him on Twitter @JoshNeedelman.

Sweden veteran defender Magda Eriksson is hanging up her international boots to focus on her health, with the 32-year-old officially announcing her retirement from her national team on Sunday.

Eriksson will continue competing at the domestic level for her German club, Bayern Munich.

The longtime captain sat out the most recent international window due to a head injury, watching as world No. 3 Sweden fell to No. 1 Spain in the two-leg 2025 Nations League semifinals.

"It's by far the toughest decision I've ever made," Eriksson said in her social media announcement. "But I'm listening to my body and mind instead of my heart."

"I've landed in the fact that unfortunately it's a decision that has to be made."

After an 11-year career with the Swedish senior national team, Eriksson retires as a two-time Olympic silver medalist, earning those podium finishes in Rio in 2016 and at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games.

Often leading Sweden through major tournaments where early domination dissolved into a third-place finish, Eriksson also helped her team eke onto the World Cup podium in both 2019 and 2023.

"It is heavy news," said Sweden head coach Tony Gustavsson after Eriksson announced her international retirement, calling her "one of our most important players for a long time."

"[Magda's] professionalism, courage, and heart have left a strong mark on the national team," he added.

Chelsea FC's £1 million gamble is paying dividends, as USWNT rising star Alyssa Thompson continued her goal-scoring momentum for the six-time defending WSL champs on Sunday.

The young forward found the back of the net in the ninth minute of the Blues' 1-1 Sunday draw with Liverpool, solidifying her status as a decisive attacking threat for her new club.

"You can see how much talent she has and the quality she brings to the team," Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor said of Thompson earlier this month. "She's improving game after game, becoming more connected to her teammates, and understanding the way we want to play better."

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Thompson left NWSL side Angel City for Chelsea on a then-record £1 million transfer fee in early September, with the 21-year-old going on to notch three goals and one assist in four matches across both WSL and Champions League play.

"Being able to play with players that are the best in the world is an amazing opportunity," said the striker. "I want to learn, grow, and develop a lot. I feel like Chelsea is such an amazing environment to do that in."

Beyond individual accomplishment, Thompson's success underscores Chelsea's depth as they continue to hunt domestic and continental honors on a now-34 match WSL unbeaten streak — while also looking to potentially draw more USWNT stars away from the NWSL.

Women's professional baseball has landed a home base, with Front Office Sports reporting on Monday that the newly formed WPBL will play the entirety of its 2026 debut season at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois.

The incoming league prioritized a neutral venue without an existing baseball team to house its four inaugural clubs — New York, Boston, LA, and San Francisco — for its first campaign, with barnstorming games also planned for each team market.

"Our sport is for everybody," WPBL co-founder Keith Stein told FOS. "It's for middle America, everybody. We thought, 'Our teams are on these two coasts, it would be good to be in the middle of the country.'"

Founded in 2024 as the first professional women's baseball outfit in the US since 1954, the WPBL will hold its first-ever draft on Thursday, with the league's four teams drawing from a pool of 120 eligible players.

The WPBL recently fielded an oversubscribed Series A investment round, telling FOS that they're closing a $3 million raise with another round planned ahead of its August 2026 season-opener.

Each 30-player team will operate under a $95,000 salary cap for the first year, with the league also covering living costs throughout the seven-week season as well as giving players a percentage of sponsorship funds.

How to watch the first-ever WPBL Draft

The 2025 WPBL Draft kicks off at 8 PM ET on Thursday, with live coverage streaming across the league's Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube channels.

Las Vegas Aces boss Becky Hammon spoke her mind last week, telling CNBC Sport that the WNBA might need "a change in leadership" for the league's CBA talks to successfully progress.

"I just think [player relations] might be too fractured at this point, but we'll see," Hammon said, while also noting that she's had only limited interactions with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert.

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Citing Engelbert's "private conversations...with individual players — or lack of the conversations," Hammon described the commissioner's current relationship with players as "rocky" while describing her widely criticized leadership style.

"I don't know if she can ever regret, retract, and get that traction back from those conversations," the Aces boss posited.

"When the players speak, people need to sit up and listen," she continued. "I think [Engelbert is] sitting up and listening now."

Hammon also voiced support for Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier after the five-time All-Star described the WNBA as having the "worst leadership in the world" in her now-viral 2025 exit interview.

"I completely agree with Napheesa that the players should be making more than coaches," the Las Vegas sideline leader — who publicly earns seven figures per year — continued. "They're due for a huge increase in salary, and it's got to be something that is sustainable. That's the biggest thing you got to remember, that this league is still a young league."

Ultimately, while the 2025 WNBA season is over, CBA concerns loom large over the league's current offseason and 2026 campaign, leaving Hammon and others looking to avoid a lockout as the November 30th extension deadline nears.