On Monday, the U.S. women’s national team will embark on its mission to qualify for the 2023 FIFA World Cup.

The Concacaf qualifying tournament takes place in Monterrey, Mexico from July 4-18. The top four teams qualify for the World Cup, and the champion automatically advances to the 2024 Olympics as well.

In the group stage, the USWNT faces Haiti (July 4), Jamaica (July 7) and Mexico (July 11), while the other group has Canada, Costa Rica, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago. Jamaica and Haiti, ranked 51st and 60th in the world by FIFA, will both give the U.S. tough competition, but No. 26 Mexico is expected to be the USWNT’s most challenging opponent in the group stage.

All USWNT games can be streamed on Paramount+, where you can get free access until July 19 by using the offer code “GLORY.”

Last week, the U.S. played a two-game friendly series against Colombia in preparation for Concacaf, winning 3-0 on Saturday and 2-0 on Tuesday.

Here are three things to know heading into the tournament based on the USWNT’s most recent game action.

Starting lineup predictions

Head coach Vlatko Andonovski said after the second game against Colombia on Tuesday that the players already know what their starting lineup will look like in Mexico. 

And for everyone else, “It’s not hard to predict who it’s going to be,” he said.

Chances are good that the lineup throughout the group stage will look very similar to last Saturday’s: Casey Murphy (GK), Emily Fox (FB), Alana Cook (CB), Becky Sauerbrunn (CB), Kelley O’Hara (FB), Andi Sullivan (M), Lindsey Horan (M), Rose Lavelle (M), Mallory Pugh (F), Ashley Hatch (F) and Sophia Smith (F).

Our XI today in Colorado 🇺🇸#USAvCOL x @Allstate

Lineup Notes » https://t.co/MH7N3MG8yM pic.twitter.com/xvZuc1TzDy

— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) June 25, 2022

If NWSL form factors into these decisions, then the biggest surprise will be to see Alex Morgan on the bench. She leads the league with 11 goals, three ahead of second-place finisher Sophia Smith and already surpassing last year’s Golden Boot champion, Ashley Hatch.

Pugh and Smith are all but certain to feature as two of the three starting forwards. Dynamic, fast, and strong on the dribble, the young attackers have had their spots solidified for months.

.@sophsssmith's second of the evening, and FIFTH of 2022! pic.twitter.com/WclxMx2T2w

— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) June 26, 2022

After Andonovski’s postgame comments Saturday, Hatch seems assured to start in the nine position.

“Ashley is here in camp and even starting the first game for a reason,” Andonovski told reporters. “She has goal-scoring abilities, she has a very good feeling for a goal, to find herself in good moments to score a goal. We think she’s going to get to play a lot and help us in the upcoming games.”

In the midfield, Andonovski alluded to Horan and Lavelle as starters. Although they each missed penalty kicks on Tuesday, Andonovski said they will continue to be the designated penalty takers because of their starting spots.

Defender Carson Pickett started Tuesday’s game and played all 90 minutes, but she was only on the 26-player squad for June and won’t be traveling to Mexico. Other left fullback Emily Fox started Saturday’s game, but was playing limited minutes in the series.

“The situation with Emily is very clear that she is a starter in the left back position and she has been proving that every camp she comes into,” Andonovski said.

Kelley O’Hara’s leadership has been important to Andonovski, as well as that of Becky Sauerbrunn, who served as captain on Saturday. Their past experience with the national team will help set the competitive bar on the field. Also in the back, Alana Cook and Casey Murphy have had consistently strong performances ever since becoming regulars at camp over six months ago. They’ll likely get the start as well.

The six situation

The biggest question mark in the USWNT’s Concacaf roster is the No. 6 position. Andi Sullivan is the only defensive midfielder making the trip to Mexico, and she’s been dealing with a quad injury. She’ll be a starter in the tournament if healthy, but on Tuesday, she didn’t dress. 

Jaelin Howell and Sam Coffey play at the six for their clubs, but did not see the field on Tuesday when Sullivan was out. Instead, Kristie Mewis and Lindsey Horan split the responsibilities in front of the backline. As midfielders who usually play higher, they’ll both likely have a slight learning curve at the position. There’s no doubt they’ll be able to adapt, but it’s notable that Andonovski decided to go with them over Howell, who has been participating in camps and acclimating to the international environment for months.

Ability to score

The USWNT was clearly ironing out tactics and chemistry in the two friendlies, which weren’t the prettiest of results, but the players have the talent to find ways to win even when things aren’t going according to plan. Both goals in the second match came from defenders. Sofia Huerta forced an own goal to put the U.S. on the board, and then Kelley O’Hara knocked one in from the top of the box near the end of the match.

Andonovski wasn’t worried that the forwards weren’t the ones to get the job done. It was difficult to get them open with five Colombian players surrounding them at all times, but the games served as a good test for Concacaf competition.

“Biggest takeaway is that we do have a very good team,” he said. “We found a way to score goals in different ways. Even though today, I would say, was not our best performance, we still managed to score goals.”

Jessa Braun is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering the NWSL and USWNT. Follow her on Twitter @jessabraun.

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LPGA Tour (@lpga_tour)

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

"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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

"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."

Watch more of Kelley on the Street: