Women’s soccer looks to repeat as national champions in 2025. (Anna Calvo | Staff Photographer)

After finishing as national runners-up in 2023, the WashU women’s soccer team beat William Smith College to win the 2024 Division III National Championship. The national championship-winning squad was led by the backline of then-seniors Emma Riley McGahan and graduate students Ally Hackett and Sidney Conner, all of whom have since graduated. Despite graduating seven ahead of the 2025 campaign, WashU’s roster is still full of returning talent.

“While we are losing some incredible players, we have a lot of great players returning to the program,” head coach Jim Conlon wrote to Student Life. “We have had a very good spring in growing in the direction we want to go. Adding some new players this fall will make us that much stronger.”

Up front, the Bears are returning sophomore Olivia Clemons, who scored 22 goals in her first season in St. Louis — the third most in program history — and was named the Most Outstanding Offensive Player of the NCAA Tournament. Seniors Grace Ehlert and Ella Koleno and junior Sophie Viscovich will join Clemons as they look to continue the Bears’ dominant offense. Ehlert was named to the NCAA Championship All-Tournament team in 2023 and had the second-most goals scored of any player last season with a total of 14. Koleno and Viscovich recorded four and five goals respectively in 2024.

Juniors Regan Cannon and Alexandra Karolak both played important roles in the Bears’ backline last season and will look to replace the graduates who helped contribute to an unbeaten season in 2024. Junior Charlotte Shapiro, who played in seven games in 2024, will likely get the bulk of starts between the posts this year. WashU also brought in two transfers from the Division I University of Iowa, alongside a 9-woman freshman class. 

Since 2021, the team has made it to the Sweet 16 or beyond every season, making it to the national championship game over the past two years. Without their All-American defense, it might be more challenging, but there’s no team on campus as capable of making three straight national championship game appearances as women’s soccer. 

The Bears have an early-season test against last year’s No. 25 Calvin University at home on Sept. 5. The rest of their early-season schedule is against unranked opponents, but they will finish their season with key UAA matchups against Carnegie Mellon University, Emory University, and the University of Chicago.