With their first NWSL win since July 5th, Portland ended Orlando's record 24-match unbeaten streak on Friday.

Thorns forward Morgan Weaver’s 13th-minute opening goal marked the first time the Pride trailed in a game since March 22nd.

Portland captain Christine Sinclair notched her 78th goal across all NWSL competitions to secure the 2-0 finish. The soon-to-retire legend's 55th-minute strike puts her just behind league-leader Lynn Williams, who scored her 80th goal in Gotham's 2-0 win over Chicago on Saturday.

The Pride, who secured the 2024 NWSL Shield earlier this month, notably did not start their three leading scorers: Barbra Banda, Marta, and Adriana. All entered in Friday's second half to face a Thorns side still missing top scorer Sophia Smith due to ankle injury.

Seventh-place Portland will look to clinch their postseason spot in the NWSL season's final two matchdays, a fact cheekily pointed out by Marta after the Thorns's victory.

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Chawinga bags NWSL scoring record

With her season's 19th goal in Saturday's 1-0 win over Bay FC, Kansas City striker Temwa Chawinga surpassed former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr's 2019 scoring tally to etch her name into the NWSL record books. Like Kerr, none of the Malawian's goals in her record-setting run have come from penalties.

"[The single-season scoring record] means a lot to me because it’s a very difficult league… So I thank my teammates and I thank God for giving me this chance to be here," Chawinga said after the game.

“We know teams now are trying to close her down and close the space down in the area where she gets most of her chances,” KC boss Vlatko Andonovski told reporters after the match. “She ran out and hit a bomb.”

The all-but-guaranteed 2024 NWSL Golden Boot winner now boasts six more goals than the league's second-leading scorer, the Pride's aforementioned Banda.

The weekend's results also saw the fourth-place Current earn a first-ever home playoff match alongside second-place Washington and third-place Gotham, while sixth-place Chicago officially secured their postseason berth.

Lacasse hat trick sees Seattle eliminated from playoffs

Utah forward Cloé Lacasse's Sunday hat trick didn’t just lift the Royals 3-0 over the Seattle Reign, it also made NWSL history.

The Canadian national opened scoring off of a third-minute corner kick, tying Utah's record for the fastest goal before firing off two more before halftime.

The feat marked the first hat trick of the 2024 NWSL season as well as the first in Utah Royals history, with Lacasse joining Crystal Dunn as the only other NWSL player to ever book three first-half goals.

Now on a three-game winning streak, the victory keeps 10th-place Utah in the postseason hunt, while also eliminating Seattle from playoff contention.

The PWHL is continuing to break records, as Sunday's 2025/26 Takeover Tour stop in Washington, DC, saw 17,228 fans pack into Capital One Arena to see the No. 2 New York Sirens top the No. 4 Montréal Victoire 2-1 — setting a new US women's hockey attendance record in the process.

The benchmark surpasses the previous US record set this past November, when the Seattle Torrent welcomed 16,014 fans to their inaugural home opener.

Sunday's DC crowd also sees the US mark inch closer to the overall professional women's hockey attendance record, set in April 2024 when 21,105 PWHL fans sold out Montréal's Bell Centre to watch the Victoire take on the Toronto Sceptres.

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"Washington, DC, showed up in such a big way, and the energy our fans brought into the arena turned this game into something truly special," PWHL EVP of business operations Amy Scheer said of the first-ever PWHL game in the nation's capital. "Moments like this capture the joy of our sport and the momentum behind the league."

The third-year league is currently racing through its best-attended month on record, drawing more than 154,000 fans across the last 16 games while averaging crowds of 8,726 across all 49 games so far this season.

The Kansas City Current delivered some concerning news this week, with the NWSL club revealing that star striker Temwa Chawinga remains sidelined with an hip adductor injury while the league's 2026 preseason gets underway.

The team currently lists the reigning back-to-back NWSL MVP under a season-ending injury (SEI) designation, a category earned after Chawinga picked up the injury in mid-October, leaving the Kansas City attacker benched for the Current's quarterfinal loss to eventual 2025 NWSL champions Gotham FC.

"It's hard because of the nature of the injury," incoming Kansas City head coach Chris Armas told The Athletic last week. "With Temwa, we've got to be very careful, but she's looking great and doing lots of good work on the return to play."

Also on the Current's SEI list is standout winger Michelle Cooper, with the 23-year-old rising USWNT star suffering a foot injury in Kansas City's final regular-season match of 2025.

"It was a little bit of a tough ending here after, honestly, an amazing historic season," said Armas. "Hopefully they are back as soon as possible, but it's still unclear."

Both Chawinga and Cooper will have some time to recover before Kansas City kicks off their 2026 NWSL regular season against the Utah Royals on March 14th — with teams allowed to lift a player's SEI status any time once the season begins.

The world's top tennis stars are rolling in Melbourne, as the first round of the 2026 Australian Open wrapped early Tuesday morning with only a few ranked seeds suffering early defeats.

World No. 15 Emma Navarro was the highest-ranked US player to fall in the first round, with the 24-year-old exiting the season's first Grand Slam in a 6-3, 3-6, 3-6 loss to Poland's No. 50 Magda Linette on Sunday.

No. 11 Ekaterina Alexandrova also stumbled in the first round, with her Melbourne run ending in a three-set loss to Turkey's No. 112 Zeynep Sönmez on Saturday before No. 68 Peyton Stearns ousted fellow US star and 2020 Australian Open champion No. 30 Sofia Kenin in straight sets on Sunday.

Many contenders still remain in the hunt, however, as the entire WTA Top 10 cruised through their opening matchups to advance to the Slam's second round.

That said, fans will miss out on one highly anticipated showdown, as wild card entry Venus Williams's first-round loss ended the 45-year-old tennis icon's path to a second-round clash with US favorite No. 3 Coco Gauff.

How to watch the second round of the 2026 Australian Open

The 2026 Australian Open continues when the Slam's second round kicks off with a Tuesday night slate that features stars like No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 3 Coco Gauff, and No. 7 Jasmine Paolini.

Tuesday's action begins at 7 PM ET, with all Melbourne matches airing live across ESPN platforms.

The ongoing dominance of UConn basketball has started to break records, as the top-ranked Huskies humbled unranked Notre Dame 85-47 on Monday — keeping their perfect 2025/26 NCAA season intact.

Monday's 38-point margin of victory marked the largest in the teams' 20-year rivalry, with the win also snapping the Huskies' three-game head-to-head losing streak against the Fighting Irish.

"UConn showed why they're the best team in the country," Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said postgame.

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Even more, UConn sophomore forward Sarah Strong added her own individual history to Monday's tally, becoming the third-fastest Husky to reach 1,000 career points, with the 19-year-old trailing only program legends Maya Moore and Paige Bueckers — who each did so in 55 games to Strong's 59 — in the race to reach that stat.

"I would love to see if anybody has scored 1,000 points by taking less shots than she's taking," said UConn head coach Geno Auriemma. "She's so efficient."

"It means a lot to me I guess, but I wouldn't be able to do it without my teammates," Strong said after leading the Huskies with an 18-point, 11-rebound double-double on Monday night.

How to watch UConn basketball this week

UConn now returns to Big East play, with the No. 1 Huskies taking on unranked Georgetown at 7:30 PM ET on Thursday, airing live on TNT.