The first weekend of Athletes Unlimited’s inaugural lacrosse season is officially in the books.

The newly minted professional league is the third under the Athletes Unlimited’s umbrella, after they previously debuted similar leagues for softball and volleyball.

Now, it’s lacrosse’s turn.

For five weeks, the world’s best lacrosse players are all in the Metro DC area at Maureen Hendricks Field competing to be the first Athletes Unlimited champion.

After the first weekend of action, here are three players to keep an eye on heading into week two:

Kayla Wood, Defender

“Kayla Wood is my new favorite person,” team captain Kylie Ohlmiller said over the weekend. “And you can quote me on that.”

Wood had a monster weekend, putting up a league-leading 501 points, 90 of which came from being named game MVP in two of her three competitions.

Our 3️⃣ MVPs for Game #3! 🤩

1️⃣ @kwooood
2️⃣ @tcummings_21
3️⃣ @BrittanyRead1 #BeUnlimited pic.twitter.com/ot5LucF9L0

— Athletes Unlimited (@AUProSports) July 24, 2021

A crafty defender fresh off of North Carolina’s Final Four run, Wood has reaped the benefits of AU’s custom points system. Built to reward defenders appropriately, the system allows players to earn individual points which go beyond just goals and assists.

Wood racked up her points on caused turnovers (36) and draw control (20), while also earning 335 points for both periods won and games won.

As a team captain this week, Wood had the opportunity to draft her own team. For her to stay atop the leaderboard, she’ll need to keep winning both periods and games, meaning her team-selection abilities as well as her defensive skills will be put to the test this weekend.

Marie McCool, Midfielder

Asked who she would draft if given the choice, lacrosse legend Taylor Cummings said Marie McCool. After the first weekend, it’s easy to see why.

Like Wood, McCool also racked up MVP points (60), with one first place and one third place MVP finish. At home in the midfield, she wasted no time raking in the goals, scoring six to go along with two assists. Included was the first two-point goal in the history of Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse, which earned the midfielder an additional 16 points.

.@uncwlax alum @mariemccool4 with the FIRST TWO-POINT GOAL in the history of Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse‼️#BeUnlimited pic.twitter.com/cB5fxdUWMm

— Athletes Unlimited (@AUProSports) July 24, 2021

Through the first weekend of action, McCool is tied with Halle Majorana for third in goals scored, one behind Taylor Cummings and four behind Kayla Treanor.

Sitting 17th on the leaderboard with 315 points, expect McCool to climb the rankings with another strong performance this weekend.

Kenzie Kent, Attack

A two-sport athlete in ice hockey and lacrosse at Boston College, Kent had a decorated college career on both the field and the ice. She played in five Final Fours — including two in lacrosse — and was named the ACC Athlete of the Year during the 2016-17 season. She was drafted fourth overall by the Boston Pride in the 2017 NWHL Draft but opted to return to lacrosse after a year away.

Now, she’s with AU and already making a splash.

Kent had a particularly great second game, wracking up 139 total points, including scoring two goals for 24 points.

"that's the Kenzie Kent we know" ‼️#BeUnlimited x @unkentrolable pic.twitter.com/K1ir2XBZwx

— Athletes Unlimited (@AUProSports) July 24, 2021

She has the power to continue to be a factor on offense. During her time at Boston College she wracked up 131 goals, including 52 in her final season — despite having taken a year off to pursue hockey. Additionally, Kent is just as prolific an assister as she is a scorer, having tallied 133 assists during her college years.

Tune in: Team Wood, featuring Kenzie Kent, will begin the second weekend of play against Team Treanor on Friday, July 30 at 5 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.

Editor’s note: Athletes Unlimited is a sponsor of Just Women’s Sports.

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.

USWNT regulars Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson furthered their cases for Olympic inclusion with their respective club victories on Saturday and Sunday.

After a roller coaster of a week that saw former Thorns head coach Mike Norris reassigned and a flurry of last-minute roster reshufflings as Friday's trade window closure loomed, the NWSL sprung to life over the weekend with standout performances from ninth-place Portland and third-place Chicago, among others.

After her blocked attempt at goal set up a volleying sixth-minute opener from veteran Christine Sinclair — now the only player in history to record a goal in all 11 NWSL seasons — Smith swiftly netted her own in the 27th minute off a breakaway run that eluded Houston's backline. The goal represented Smith's third of the season as well as her 35th for the Thorns, ultimately leading to the home side's first win of the season in a 4-1 routing of the Dash.

But that wasn't Smith's only stat of the evening. The star forward also lapped former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr to become the youngest player to reach 50 NWSL goal contributions across all games, chalking up 40 goals and 10 assists at the age of 23 years and 254 days.

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"Obviously it feels good to get a win," said Smith in a post-match press conference. "But this is the standard the Thorns have always had. So a win is great, but a win is the expectation — we're hungrier than ever after the way we started."

170 miles up the road, Lumen Field similarly showcased some promising Olympic prospect footwork on Sunday. In Chicago's 2-1 victory over the lagging 13th-place Seattle Reign, striker Mallory Swanson racked up an impressive counterattack assist on fellow forward Ally Schlegel's fourth-minute goal. Swanson went on to find the back of the net herself before halftime, lacing an explosive ball into the top corner in the 31st minute, her second of the season after returning from a lengthy sidelining injury.

Speaking of injuries, fellow USWNT favorites Alex Morgan and Tierna Davidson were not as fortunate as their national squad teammates this weekend. Each exited their club matches early, Morgan with an ankle knock in San Diego's loss to Orlando and Davidson with an apparent hamstring incident early on in Washington's win over Gotham.

LSU came out on top at the 2024 NCAA women's gymnastics championship in Fort Worth on Saturday, besting Cal, Utah, and Florida to capture their first-ever title.

The Tigers' win was far from a landslide. LSU took the first rotation handily thanks to 2024 All-Around winner Haleigh Bryant's team-leading 9.9375 backed by four additional 9.9+ scores from her teammates. But Utah then responded with three strong beam performances of their own, causing the Red Rocks to slide confidently into second place by the end of the second rotation.

By the halfway point, all four teams fell within .288 points of one another before Utah overtook the pack with a dominant floor showing after three rotations. LSU then went on to ace the beam event with Konnor McClain's meet-leading 9.9625 score, coming away with the highest collective score ever awarded to the event in NCAA championship history. The achievement propelled the Tigers to victory, ensuring them the title after the final rotation.

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"This team is full of individuals that have incredible character and integrity and love for each other and all the things you hear from coaches when they sit at a podium like this in a moment of victory, but I promise you it's a real thing," said LSU coach Jay Clark in a post-meet press conference. "I'm just so happy for them."

Contributing to Saturday's atmosphere of excitement was the absence of last year's champion and this year's heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners. Hot off earning the highest team score in NCAA history just last month, the top-ranked Norman squad suffered a shocking loss in the semifinals, where five major mistakes contributed to a third-place finish and a season-low team score of 196.6625.

With Oklahoma out, it was truly anyone's game.

"Every team was out there fighting for their lives — all four teams, it could have gone any of four ways out there," Clark told reporters. "As much as I feel for what happened to Oklahoma in the semifinals, I think it made for a championship that became so packed with emotion because every team out there believed they could do it. It was just tremendous."

LSU is now the eighth program in the sport's history to earn an NCAA women's gymnastic championship.
They share the honor with Georgia, Utah, UCLA, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and Michigan.

Cameron Brink already has her rookie of the year pick for the upcoming WNBA season, and it’s Indiana-bound star Caitlin Clark. 

In the latest edition of Kelley on the Street, host Kelley O'Hara caught up with Brink in New York hours before the Stanford phenom went No. 2 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft. When O’Hara asked who would win the WNBA's rookie of the year, she answered without pause.

"Caitlin Clark," she said, while a fan commented that she thought Brink would take home the award. Brink later added that the extra foul granted to WNBA players will be "good for me."

"I hope it’s me," Charisma Osborne, who was later drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, said when asked her ROY prediction. "But, I don’t know — we’ll see."

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