Sophia Smith criticized the NWSL’s response to Alex Morgan’s comments about the officiating in a game over the weekend. The league issued a fine to the San Diego Wave forward on Wednesday for violating the “Prejudicial Statements and Public Criticism” section of the operations manual, which amounts to a $500 fine.

On Sunday, Morgan called out the refereeing in San Diego’s 2-1 loss to Kansas City after she sustained an injury from a hard tackle in Saturday’s match. Posting a video from the incident, the 34-year-old questioned the non-call after Kansas City’s Stine Ballisager slide tackled her in the box in stoppage time.

“In what world is this not a penalty and red card, or even foul? Completely reckless and the leg going in for the tackle doesn’t even get a ball when I cut her?” Morgan wrote. “Just glad I saw her coming and didn’t plant on that leg or I’d 100% not be walking today.”

Smith, Morgan’s NWSL opponent and teammate on the U.S. women’s national team, took issue with the fine, calling it “backwards” and a reflection of “messed up” priorities.

Morgan’s coach, Casey Stoney, has also been fined twice this season for criticizing NWSL referees.

After Morgan limped off the field following the tackle on Saturday, the extent of her injury remains unclear.

Alex Morgan took aim at the officiating of the San Diego Wave’s 2-1 loss to the Kansas City Current on Saturday after sustaining an injury during the match.

The 34-year-old striker posted a video from the match, which showed Stine Ballisager Pedersen tackling Morgan. In her post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Morgan questioned the lack of a call from the referees.

“In what world is this not a penalty and red card, or even foul? Completely reckless and the leg going in for the tackle doesn’t even get a ball when I cut her?” she wrote. “Just glad I saw her coming and didn’t plant on that leg or I’d 100% not be walking today.”

At the end of the match, Morgan limped off the field. San Diego head coach Casey Stoney did not have any updates on Morgan’s status in her postgame press conference.

It’s not the first time that either Morgan or San Diego coach Casey Stoney have criticized the lack of calls from the officials. Last October, Stoney called out the referees’ treatment of Morgan following the team’s 2-1 NWSL semifinal loss to the Portland Thorns.

“I think she took a lot of hits,” Stoney told reporters at the time. “She didn’t get a lot of protection. It felt like there was at times one team out there. It was the home team. That was disappointing because I think, like I said last week post match, player safety has to be the key performance indicator for the officials. I thought they lacked that tonight.”

The San Diego Wave suffered two major losses Saturday night.

The team lost to the Kansas City Current, 2-1, falling out of first place in the NWSL standings. And perhaps more important for the team’s long term future, star striker Alex Morgan suffered an injury in stoppage time and limped off the field.

San Diego coach Casey Stoney said afterward she had no updates on Morgan, who didn’t score a goal for the 13th consecutive game. Last season, Morgan won the NWSL’s goals title and never went more than three matches without scoring

The Wave can reclaim the top spot in the standings with three regular season games remaining, but they’ll need to play better than they did Saturday; the Wave didn’t record a shot on goal in the first half, losing the possession battle 57 percent to 43 percent.

“I was extremely disappointed with our first half,” San Diego coach Casey Stoney told reporters.

Morgan wasn’t the only NWSL star to suffer an injury this weekend. Washington Spirit midfielder Ashley Sanchez also suffered an injury during the team’s 2-0 loss to Gotham FC on Saturday. Spirit coach Mark Parsons said afterward he had update on Sanchez, who has scored five goals and recorded an assist this season.

Alex Morgan hasn’t scored since May.

The 34-year-old forward has five goals on the NWSL season, but she has not scored for club or country since a regular season matchup between the San Diego Wave and Houston Dash on May 20. She was the leading scorer in the NWSL last season with 15 goals.

But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been instrumental for the first-place Wave.

“I thought Alex Morgan was outstanding last game,” Wave head coach Casey Stoney said Thursday. “I think she hit every bit of woodwork possible, but that’s what she can do. She can keep getting in the right areas, keep taking the shots and it’ll come.

“You don’t go from being a world-class striker to being a poor player overnight. She’s a fantastic player. She’s still a world-class striker and the goals will come. Her contributions this season for us have been magnificent even when she’s not scoring goals, so keeping her in a good space is important.”

If there was a time for Morgan to get scoring, it would be now. There are four games left in the regular season before the Wave start their playoff run.

“It excites me actually,” Stoney said, “the amount of opportunity she is getting and the amount we are creating as a team. If we can start turning them into goals, wins become more comfortable.”

Jaedyn Shaw received her first U.S. women’s national team call-up Tuesday, and she’s preparing for the lessons that come with it.

The 18-year-old forward will be appearing in her first senior-level camp ahead of friendlies against South Africa on Sept. 21 and 24. And while the objective is for Shaw to ease into her role with the USWNT – she’s been told this will be a “no-pressure camp” – she’s embracing the opportunity.

“I’ve always loved high-pressure moments,” Shaw told reporters Thursday. “I have been told that this is a no-pressure camp, just getting my feet in the water and kind of enjoying the experience, and that’s something that I’m really taking to heart. I’m just trying to go and learn as much as I can, gain as much as I can from this experience.”

Getting the call was “an amazing, happy moment.” She shared it with her mom, who was her first call after she received the news and was “practically crying through the phone,” Shaw said.

She also spoke with her San Diego Wave teammate Naomi Girma, who already has USWNT experience.

“I feel like I’ve already bombarded [Girma] with a bunch of questions,” Shaw said. “One of them was seating arrangements, on the bus, in the meetings. That was something that I know a lot of teams, you kind of have [assigned seats]. I know we do, like I have my front row seat…I was like, ‘Where do I sit?’

“I think another thing was, how do the training kits fit, so I know what size to get? And then there was like, if I need to bring a notebook, what do you pack? Like that kind of stuff. Literally not even soccer-based. It’s just stuff off the field.”

San Diego head coach Casey Stoney knows just how much the USWNT call-up means for Shaw, and she called it “deserved” for a “quality player with huge potential and a huge amount of talent.”

“It’s a great opportunity for her to go in without any pressure,” Stoney said. “Being in a senior environment is very different than being in a youth environment. I think she’ll go in and she’ll show her quality. It’s just for her, going in and soaking it all up, soaking in the experience.”

Stoney also opened up a bit Thursday about how she’s tried to ensure that Shaw doesn’t feel any added pressure. She’s no stranger to managing young players, something she says that has been a journey of learning and, at times, getting it wrong.

“I learned so much more from the ones that I got it wrong with,” she said, admitting that she “got it wrong” with Ebony Salmon while she was with Manchester United. “Whereas before, I might be quite harsh and stern on those players, I think now I see it as they’re on a road. And sometimes they’re gonna get lost. It’s my job to keep trying to put them back on track and keep them on that journey, and guide them and educate them.”

She also called Shaw “unbelievable” and “an absolute dream” to manage.

“She has nothing on her mind other than being the best player in the world,” she said. “She’s very coachable, she wants to be the best. For me, it’s just making sure that she’s patient enough in her journey and that she sees the process rather than the outcome all the time.”

The Wave sit atop the NWSL table with four matches remaining. Shaw will play one more match against the Kansas City Current before leaving for her USWNT duties, then will return to close out the regular season with San Diego.

Abby Dahlkemper’s long history with spondylolysis, a stress fracture in the spine, took a turn last January, with the nerve pain getting to the point where she felt like her hamstring was ripping.

The U.S. women’s national team defender had been named to the SheBelieves Cup in February 2022 but had to withdraw due to the injury. While she tried to rehab the injury without getting surgery, receiving multiple epidural injections along the way, it didn’t get better.

“It turned out, just trusting my gut, I was like, I just need to get this fixed,” she said on the latest episode of Snacks. “My vertebrae had basically ruptured, and there was a cyst and bone fragments hitting my nerve roots. So it was just never going to get better unless I had gotten it operated on.”

She had a transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion surgery, in which doctors fused one of her vertebrae back together. In February, she revealed her surgery via TikTok and said that the bone had already begun to fuse, which put her ahead of schedule in her recovery timeline.

In late August, Dahlkemper finally made her return to the field, scoring for the San Diego Wave in her third game back in the NWSL. The drawn-out recovery process, she said, helped her find her identity away from soccer and appreciate the game more when she returned.

“It was relieving also because I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to be the same, like how I’m going to feel on the field, all this stuff,” she told Snacks co-hosts Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams. “But it was kind of like riding a bike. And I just feel like we’ve done it for so long that I don’t know, I just feel like one of my biggest takeaways was just literally having fun and enjoying it because we are not getting any younger.”

Dahlkemper, 30, said coping with the injury took a toll on her mentally, but it also gave her a newfound perspective on her life and career.

“I feel like I’ve cried the most I’ve cried ever in my life during the last year, just because your self-worth and your identity is all tied into soccer for so long,” she said. “I feel like when you’re forced to actually not be just a soccer player, then you’re just kind of like, OK, well, I need to find happiness elsewhere.

“And I feel like now I just have a better balance and understanding of who I am outside of soccer, the enjoyment that I can get through my relationships and being where I’m at.”

Abby Dahlkemper has made a triumphant return to the NWSL after missing almost a year with a back injury.

After undergoing spinal fusion surgery last November, the defender returned in late August of this year and scored in her third game back for the San Diego Wave. Dahlkemper opened up about the injury and her long road back to the field on the latest episode of Snacks, revealing that she knew she needed surgery in a game against the Orlando Pride last year in July.

“It was probably like 20 minutes into the game and my back just spazzed. I had a muscle spasm in my back, and I had to get subbed off at like 22 minutes,” she said. “And I just thought to myself, I have to do something about this because I can’t keep trying to push through this.”

Dahlkemper said she had been dealing with spondylolysis, a stress fracture in the spine, “for a long time,” and the pain started to get worse early last year. While she attempted to rehab it non-surgically over the course of the 2022 NWSL season, a few setbacks aggravated the injury, and the incident in the game against Orlando pushed her over the edge.

“I feel like as athletes, we know our bodies so well, and I just knew something wasn’t right. Like, it didn’t feel like my normal back,” Dahlkemper told Snacks co-hosts Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams.

“So I was obviously so scared to get surgery and I didn’t really know what they would find when they went in there, but I was like, I need to get this not only for my career and livelihood, but also for my life after soccer.”

Dahlkemper, who started every game for the U.S. women’s national team in the run to the 2019 World Cup title, said she was fortunate to be able to see a renowned back surgeon near her home in San Diego. Since the operation, the 30-year-old has returned to the field and played a full 90 minutes in the last two games she started for San Diego at center-back.

“It was scary once I got the surgery and got it done because I just didn’t know how I was going to heal, like if I was ever going to be able to get like a full rotation and this and that in my back,” Dahlkemper said. “But I feel like my body has adjusted well and coming back, I feel like I haven’t really missed a beat.”

Jaedyn Shaw’s stock continues to rise.

When the U.S. women’s national team announced the 27-player roster for its September friendlies, two new but familiar faces were on it: Chelsea’s Mia Fishel and San Diego Wave’s Shaw.

While Fishel received her first USWNT call-up in October 2020, she still is seeking her first international cap. Meanwhile, Shaw is making her training camp debut with the USWNT in her first full NWSL season.

During the 2022 season, Shaw chose to forgo her college eligibility to sign with the Wave through the now-defunct NWSL discovery process. The second-youngest player to compete in the NWSL at the time at 17 years old, Shaw became the youngest player to score in their NWSL debut when she notched the game-winner against Chicago last July. She finished the season with three goals in seven games.

In her first full NWSL season, Shaw has continued to impress. Through 18 matches – 15 of which were starts – the 18-year-old has five goals, which puts her among the best in the NWSL. She is tied for first on the Wave in goals with USWNT star forward Alex Morgan.

Her success made her eventual ascension to the USWNT ranks seem like a question of when, not if. After all, she already has played amongst the U.S. youth ranks, starring for the U-15 squad and more recently the U-20 squad, with two goals in six appearances.

She’s a star in the making, described by Wave head coach Casey Stoney as a player whose “vision and ability to pick a pass that breaks a backline is some of the best I’ve seen in the game, and I’ve been in the game a long time.”

And her San Diego teammates, who already are starring for the USWNT, have echoed the sentiment: Shaw is ready for her moment.

“I think Jae’s gonna be so good. I mean, she’s already so good,” USWNT and Wave defender Naomi Girma told Just Women’s Sports. “I think she’s gonna get so much better, so she’s an exciting one to watch.”

With four games left in the 2023 NWSL regular season, the league table is getting tight at the top.

Just four points separate the first-place San Diego Wave and the sixth-place Washington Spirit. Racing Louisville and Angel City are close behind in seventh and eighth, respectively, with 24 points. The top six teams in the standings at the end of the regular season make the playoffs.

Last season’s Shield winner, OL Reign, currently sit in fourth with 27 points. But who could win it this year? Just Women’s Sports breaks it down with over a month to go.

Stock up: San Diego Wave

San Diego notched a 1-0 win over the Houston Dash on Sunday, thanks to Jaedyn Shaw’s goal, to catapult to the top of the NWSL table. Currently on a three-game win streak, the Wave are peaking with the playoffs approaching.

“To get three wins in a row in this league is really, really difficult,” said Wave assistant coach Louis Hunt. “And not something that teams do too often. So the fact that we’ve been able to do it after the run that we were on prior is massive, and it puts us in a really, really strong position.”

The Wave spent time in the No. 1 spot last season but were unable to close it out to win the NWSL Shield. This time could be different, in just their second season as an expansion franchise.

Stock down: North Carolina Courage

The Courage led the table at one point in the season, but they’ve had a rough go of it in their last four regular-season games. After losing two in a row — with Challenge Cup games taking place in between — they’ve drawn their last two. North Carolina’s last win came on July 1 against Houston.

They were close to securing a win over Gotham on Saturday, leading 3-1 into the 70th minute, before Gotham scored two late goals to pull level. One bright spot during the Courage’s winless streak has been the offense, which has scored in eight straight NWSL games and in 15 of 18 games. Only the second-place Portland Thorns have scored goals in more NWSL matches this season.

Potential sleeper: Angel City FC

No team has had a better record in its last five games than Angel City. The Los Angeles club has won their last two games, including becoming the first California team to defeat OL Reign on Aug. 27, and has gone unbeaten in their last seven under interim head coach Becki Tweed.

Sitting at 24 points, Angel City has an uphill battle to win the Shield. But if they continue on their current streak, and other dominoes fall their way, Angel City could end up as a dark-horse contender in the postseason.

Full league standings

  1. San Diego Wave, 30 pts
  2. Portland Thorns, 29 pts
  3. North Carolina Courage, 28 pts
  4. OL Reign, 27 pts
  5. Gotham FC, 27 pts
  6. Washington Spirit, 26 pts
  7. Racing Louisville, 24 pts
  8. Angel City, 24 pts
  9. Orlando Pride, 22 pts
  10. Houston Dash, 20 pts
  11. Chicago Red Stars, 20 pts
  12. Kansas City Current, 19 pts

Jaedyn Shaw came up big once again for San Diego on Sunday.

The forward scored her fifth goal of the season to lead the Wave to a 1-0 win over the Houston Dash. The victory launched them into first place in the NWSL standings with 30 points.

“We got a lot of chances and somehow they were just not going in the goal, and it just felt really good to be able to put one in the back of the net,” Shaw said after the game.

The 18-year-old is now one goal away from breaking the NWSL record for regular season goals scored by a teenager, having tied Mallory Swanson with eight total since 2022. According to OptaJack, all other teenage players in league history have combined for nine goals before turning 19.

With the win, San Diego has now won three of its last five and gone unbeaten in four of those games. The Wave and Angel City FC are the only two teams in the league on at least a two-game active win streak.

“To get three wins in a row in this league is really, really difficult,” said Wave assistant coach Louis Hunt. “And not something that teams do too often. So the fact that we’ve been able to do it after the run that we were on prior is massive, and it’s put us in a really, really strong position.”

San Diego’s defense also came up big, holding the Dash to zero shots on target.

“Our biggest thing has just been work ethic these past couple of weeks,” said Wave goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan. “I think we know that if we work harder than the other team on any day, we’re going to come out on top.”

The Wave (9-6-3) hold a one-point lead over the second-place Portland Thorns and a two-point lead over the North Carolina Courage.