Sports | Women's Soccer
First-years shine as No. 1 women’s soccer advances to second straight National Championship game

For the second year in a row, WashU women’s soccer is back in the National Championship game. (Anna Calvo | Staff Photographer)
At the end of the first half of their Final Four matchup, the No. 1 WashU women’s soccer team sat tied against No. 2 Christopher Newport University (CNU). Then, coming out of halftime, the Bears exploded, scoring three goals in the first 13 minutes of the second period.
“Even if we’re not getting a goal in the first half, we just believe in ourselves and trust everyone on the field,” junior Grace Ehlert said after the game. “We know it’s coming if we just keep pushing for it.”
Now, after the 3-0 victory, the Bears will make their second straight National Championship appearance on Sunday, Dec. 8 against No. 11 William Smith College. After losing in last season’s title game, the Bears — who now hold a WashU record with 22 wins in a single season — are looking for one final win in the season’s final game. Though last year’s loss is on the Bears’ minds, they know Sunday’s game is a new opportunity.
“2023 was 2023, now we got to focus on 2024,” head coach Jim Conlon said. “Some people obviously remember that feeling, but we really got to stay focused on how we’re playing this year.”

Kate Martin has been a key contributor off the bench in the WashU midfield all season long, and scored her first collegiate goal to open the scoring against Christopher Newport Friday. (Alan Knight | Multimedia Editor)
Despite outshooting Christopher Newport 9-1 in the first half, the Bears struggled to generate any real threats on goal and entered the halftime break tied at zero. However, according to Conlon, the team didn’t need to make any halftime adjustments.
“I thought we played really well in the first half, I just thought we need to give ourselves a little bit of talk and reinforcement in our skills and to just keep playing our style,” he said. “We just needed to settle in and be just a hair sharper, and that led to three goals.”
Two minutes into the second half, a corner kick was cleared out to the edge of the box. First-year Kate Martin hit the ball first-time, and it glanced off the goalkeeper’s outstretched hands en route to the top-left corner of the net. The goal was the first of the young college career for Martin, who has been a key contributor to the Bears’ midfield this season.
“Kate Martin has been fantastic for us,” Conlon said. “We ask her to do a lot of different things, and [today] was not a bad time to pick a game for your first college goal.”
Just over a minute later, another first-year — WashU’s leading scorer Olivia Clemons — doubled their lead. Clemons received the ball 20 yards from the box, sprinted by the CNU backline, and then nutmegged the Captains goalkeeper for her 21st goal of the season. Clemons is now tied for the third most single season goals in WashU history.
In the 57th minute, first-year Cami Colpitts tacked on a third goal, putting the game out of reach. Colpitts received the ball on the right wing, dribbled by a defender, and chipped the goalkeeper to extend the Bears’ lead. The three goals scored were the most CNU’s stout backline has allowed all season long.

Cami Colpitts scored her fifth goal of the season to extend WashU’s lead to three over Christopher Newport. (Bri Nitsberg | Managing Photo Editor)
All three WashU goals were scored by first-year players. Despite the pressure of their first Final Four match, the first-years rose to the occasion.
“I couldn’t even explain to you how proud I am of the freshmen for stepping up today,” graduate student goalkeeper Sidney Conner said. “Watching them grow from the beginning of the season to now and stepping up in this huge game has been really amazing for us upperclassmen to watch, and we’re so proud of them.”
WashU’s defense limited the Captains’ offense to just five shots, their fewest in a game all season. Only two of their attempts were on goal, and Conner — who was named a First-Team All-American for the second season in a row — handled them calmly to earn the Bears’ 18th shutout of the season, tying the program record set last season. According to Conner, WashU’s midfielders were crucial to the Bears’ ability to control the game.
“One of the biggest things that our midfield did was win 50-50 balls in the middle of the field, which really helped us keep the ball kind of in their half, rather than ours, so that was huge. I give [junior] Kaci Karl and Kate Martin and [sophomore] Jadyn Aling credit for that,” Conner said.
WashU now turns its attention to the National Championship game, which will be played Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2 p.m. CST in Las Vegas and live streamed on the NCAA’s website. After making it to this point last year and losing, WashU is looking forward to a second chance on Sunday.
“It means everything to me to be able to have this opportunity again. It’s not an easy road, and I’m so incredibly proud of the team for stepping up and really doing their jobs to get us back into this position,” Conner said. “Honestly, we all just want to keep playing and keep spending time together. So that’s it just means the world to me to be able to play the last possible game of the season.”