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Kansas City Current defender Alex Loera has enjoyed a stellar rookie season in the NWSL, highlighted by her game winner — and game saver — in KC’s 2-0 semifinal win.
Head coach Matt Potter says Loera should have been a rookie of the year candidate, an award that ultimately went to Naomi Girma of the San Diego Wave.
“We’re obviously blessed to see her (play) every day. I’m just pleased that she’s starting to show those qualities on the biggest stages, too,” Potter said. “I think her best days are still ahead of her.”
Ahead of the 2022 NWSL Championship on Saturday, On Her Turf caught up with Loera about her journey to the Kansas City Current, when she decided she wanted to play pro soccer, and what she’s most excited about in the NWSL final.
A lot of people actually mess it up… It’s loo-ERR-uh (with rolled Rs)… For people who can’t roll their tongue, I always say it’s like loo-ed-uh.
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Loera: I honestly didn’t expect it to go this well. I don’t even know what I was expecting when I came into the league, but I have been very blessed with how well my journey has gone so far.
It’s definitely helpful when you have such inspiring vets on your team. Desi(ree) Scott, especially, has been in my corner. Taylor Leach too. Just letting me know that they have confidence in me.
The coaching staff, as well, has been great at letting me know that they trust me and that they know what I can do.
That environment makes it really easy to express yourself, both on and off the field. So we all just have the best time playing, which I’m sure you can see.
Loera: I had spent a little time in St. Louis because I have some family there, but I’d never been to Kansas City before this year. And it is very different from California… so that’s been a little difficult. But they both have their perks. The people here, the fans, everybody is so kind. It’s starting to feel like home.
I just started nannying because I love being around kids. So it’s been really nice to build that lifestyle here. And I do have a couple friends outside of soccer.
The city is beautiful, especially at night. But even on the drive to work in the morning, just the sun and the skyscrapers, it’s really beautiful.
Loera: It’s actually really funny because when I talk to my family or friends back home, I say ‘work.’ I’m like, ‘I have to work today.’
It’s hard, changing it from ‘I have to train today’… But it’s actually my job now. I have this epiphany every week that’s like, ‘Wow, I actually get to do what I love and get paid to play soccer.’ It’s incredible. I’m very thankful for that.
Loera: I was just full of emotion when the CBA came out. It was all kinds of emotion. I was sad that people had had a workplace where they didn’t have (a CBA) in place. I was like, they deserve this. We all deserve this. I just felt so incredibly grateful to those who have — day-in and day-out — fought for these basic workplace rights that (didn’t exist) before.
Just to see all these women come together in this league and demand more, it was incredible to see it finally put in place.
Loera: It’s one of my favorite places, it’s just beautiful. I started playing soccer when I was three years old. My parents put us in all sports. (Eventually) we had to choose one because it was too difficult with travel and everything.
I had to choose between soccer or softball. I loved softball, but I was not very good at it. I couldn’t see the ball when I was trying to hit it so that’s how I chose soccer.
From then on, I just knew that I wanted to play soccer professionally. After school, I would drive an hour to practice and an hour home. It was difficult (to miss out on) activities like basketball games or football games… But I knew that in order to get where I wanted, it had to come with sacrifices.
(Eventually), I had to make a decision to change teams. That was really difficult, but I knew that in order to do what I wanted, I needed to be on one of the best teams in the state. So I started playing with Colorado Storm.
After practices, I would drive home and do (more training) with a men’s team in the area. One of those coaches, Jeff Carroll, I would not be where I am today without him. Every day, I would go and train with his team after my own team’s training. I just loved training with boys because they were faster… their touches were a lot sharper than mine, at the time.
I just put myself in a situation to fail so I could grow… You have to surround yourself with people who are better than you. In the moment it sucks, for sure. I was embarrassed at those practices when I’d lose the ball every single time I touched it. But as I as I kept going, I could see myself (improving).
So my journey has been crazy. And if there weren’t for the sacrifices that my parents made, that my family members made, I would not be here. So I’m very thankful.
Loera: Yeah, playing during the global pandemic was terrible because we didn’t even know if we were gonna have a season. If you had asked me at the beginning of my senior year, I would have been like, ‘We are not going to get our season.’
But we ended up playing. We only played seven games before the (conference) tournament… which put us in the (NCAA) tournament. It was crazy because we went from not even knowing if we were going to play to being in the Final Four and then winning the whole thing. It was just a whirlwind of emotions, from not being sure if we were playing to winning the championship.
And then it was kind of a no-brainer for me to take my fifth year because Santa Clara was going to pay for me to get a master’s degree. My parents have always been super keen that education comes first so… it was like, ‘Sorry, Current. I gotta do this real quick and then I’ll come join you guys.’
Loera: It was funny because my (college) coach had been telling some of the (NWSL) coaches, like, ‘She’s not going to come if you draft her. Like, don’t bank on her coming and use that pick if you want her to come now.’
But thankfully Kansas City was like, ‘No, we’re taking her.’ So I ended up in such a great place.
Loera: I was not expecting to get called (based on) what my coach had been telling me. And then I got a phone call from my coach, like, ‘It might be you. Or it might be someone else.’
I was like, ‘This is nuts.’ Then I heard my name and it was crazy. I don’t know how else to say it, I just started crying. My family was there, my (college) team was there. My mom and sister and grandma all flew out just in case (I got drafted). So I was very lucky to be surrounded by all my friends and family when it did happen.
Loera: I think I took it more like, ‘What can I do to help when I get there?’ So I just tried to go in with an open mind. This is a brand new team. This is a brand new season, a clean slate… So I think just focusing on the clean slate really helped.
Loera: I am so excited. And I’m just so excited for my teammates, too, because there are people who haven’t ever the NWSL playoffs. So just to contribute to getting them this experience, that’s kind of my favorite part.
Just the way that Desi Scott pours her heart into this club, this program, and our teammates… The smile on her face when we beat Houston in the quarterfinals (when she had a red card), she got to live to see another day in the playoffs. And to actually see her play in that next game, I can’t tell you how happy that made me.
So I think that’s my favorite part: just getting to see my teammates, their facial expressions, their reactions.
Loera: I don’t think we’re too focused on past performances. The last times we played (Portland), we had a lot of room to grow. We are a different team now than we were then… I think our coaching staff has really just set us up for success… I also really applaud our game changers (substitutes) that act as the other team in training. They do such a great job – week-in and week-out – of really nailing what the other team does, their tendencies, their patterns.
I think the whole group is just like, ‘Why not us? Why can’t we be the ones to win it all? We’re here.’ I think everyone knows we have such a great opportunity in front of us.
Follow Alex Azzi on Twitter @AlexAzziNBC
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Sedona Prince’s career at Oregon has ended with a torn elbow ligament that will require surgery.
Prince, a 6-foot-7 center, has opted to forgo her final year of eligibility and pursue a professional career following surgery next month, the Ducks announced Friday.
“I’m heartbroken,” Prince said in a statement. “I truly felt that this was the year I could showcase my work ethic and skills on the court, but also my self-growth and leadership ability. I tried to push through the injury and be there for my team, but after extensive evaluation from the best doctors in the world and looking deep inside myself at my passions and goals, I know that I have to take care my elbow now in order to ensure long-term health and a sustained professional career.”
Prince averaged 9.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game last season. She drew attention when she posted about the disparities between the women’s and men’s weight rooms at the 2021 NCAA Tournament on social media.
“She has done so many wonderful things and has been an incredible representative of our program and the university. Her impact on collegiate athletics, especially in the area of gender equity, has been immense and will be felt for generations to come,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said.
In her career for the No. 20 Ducks, Prince averaged 9.5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks a game.
She will be honored before Oregon’s exhibition game against Carroll College at Matthew Knight Arena on Friday night.
If you ask Kansas City Current players to tell you how their worst-to-first Cinderella story began, they’ll likely point to nine months ago on the calendar — February 2022.
Leaving behind snowy, 40-degree weather for four weeks, the new-look squad headed to the Sunshine State and set up camp at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., just south of Tampa Bay.
“In preseason, I kept saying, ‘Something feels different,’” Current defender Kristen Edmonds told On Her Turf ahead of Saturday’s NWSL Championship matchup vs. the Portland Thorns. “We went to Florida for a month and within the first couple days, I just had this feeling, for me, something’s very different about this season.”
There were the obvious changes: a new general manager in Camille Levin Ashton, a new head coach in Matt Potter, and the blockbuster additions of USWNT stars Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams.
“We were just together constantly. We had meetings in the morning, we had practice, we ran together, we started this crazy new lifting program,” said eight-year NWSL veteran Lo’eau LaBonta . “… I think because we started at square one and everybody bought in, it was very easy to build a successful team.”
“Honestly, this [was] the hardest preseason I’ve ever been through in my entire career,” added Edmonds, who joined the NWSL in 2014. “I don’t know exactly what it was because there were days where I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, I’m dead. I need a day off. I need an extra day off.’… But just being around the group and us being together all the time, and just the vibes that I was getting. It just seemed like we had something special, and obviously we did.”
“After last year, we kind of came with something to prove,” said midfielder Addie McCain, who joined Kansas City as a rookie in 2021. “So, it kind of felt like a fresh start. Everybody seemed to buy in to what the new staff had to offer, and it kind of paid off.”
To say their efforts paid off is an understatement. Just one season ago, the club started the 2021 campaign with the generic name “KC NWSL” after new owners took over. Playing on a converted baseball field, KC went winless for their first 17 games (including four Challenge Cup games) and didn’t secure a win until midway through August, beating the OL Reign 1-0. They finished the season at the bottom of the 10-team NWSL table, going 3-14-7.
But the club didn’t let last year’s struggles get in the way of this year’s opportunity, according to Potter, who helped usher in the concept of a new identity for the Current from the jump.
“It goes all the way back to preseason where we probably spent longer figuring out what’s the identity that we want the Kansas City Current to look like on and off the field,” he said.
But the 2022 NWSL season got off to a rocky start. After a solid preseason run landed the Current in the Challenge Cup semifinals, KC faced the regular season without either of their star acquisitions when Mewis (knee) and Williams (right hamstring and hip) were both sidelined with season-ending injuries. The Current went winless through their first five games, including a 3-0 blowout to the Thorns in their regular-season opener.
With Mewis and Williams on the sidelines, other players stepped up.
“It’s not a starting 11. We literally have a starting 20. Anybody can fall in there,” said LaBonta. “We call them gamechangers, not subs.”
The tide began to turn over Memorial Day weekend, when KC earned its first win of the season, a 1-0 victory over Racing Louisville. The triumph kicked off a 13-game unbeaten streak that pushed the Current into contention for the NWSL Shield by September.
The undefeated streak (the second-longest in NWSL history) was punctuated in June by a move into the team’s $18 million training facility, all of which was privately funded, according to owners Angie and Chris Long and co-owner Brittany Mahomes, who founded the team in December 2020. A bespoke, 11,500-seat stadium is on track for the 2024 season, marking the first stadium purpose-built for a U.S. women’s soccer team.
“Obviously, coming off a not-so-great season previously, I think a lot of people wouldn’t have thought that we could get here,” said midfielder Desiree Scott, who played with both of the club’s previous iterations (Kansas City FC, Utah Royals). “But as the season continued… I think that belief continued to grow with our winning streaks happening, just the way we were playing … We thought we can get here and here we are.”
The Current finished the regular season 10-6-6, dropping to fifth on the table but qualifying for their first NWSL Playoffs. They earned their spot in the final with a 2-0 victory over OL Reign, this year’s NWSL Shield winners. On Saturday night, the Current face a formidable foe in Portland, which is playing in its fourth NWSL Championship and has won twice before (2013, 2017).
“They certainly have found the joy of what they do and we try to get better every day. So if you’re living out those things, then this is just another opportunity to believe that we can go on and do great things. That’s what we’re preparing for and that’s what hopefully shows up tomorrow night,” Potter said.
“I think the whole group is just like, ‘Why not us? Why can’t we be the ones to win it all? We’re here,'” echoed NWSL rookie defender Alex Loera .
On Her Turf editor Alex Azzi contributed to this report.