Four questions from the Courage's 2026 preseason roster

On February 3rd, the North Carolina Courage announced their 29-player preseason roster, which will need to be whittled down to 26 players by the beginning of the season.

By the numbers, that roster has:

• 15: players who did not appear for the Courage in 2025
• 9: countries with youth or full national team representation
• 2: former NC Courage academy players

Here’s where that roster looks like, with one question for each position group.

All college production graphs via the ASA Scouting Tableau from Paul Harvey, which is based on Wyscout data.

Goalkeepers #

• Kailen Sheridan
• Madi White
• Molly Pritchard
• Erin McKinney (NRI)

The question: With a whole new goalkeeping room, what is depth chart order? #

To recap: the Courage let their winningest goalkeeper leave for a $1.5m contract, and arguably got better. Kailen Sheridan is the nailed-on starter. Even as her shot stopping has tailed off a little in the past two years, she remains one of, if not the, best keepers in the league commanding her area and with the ball at her feet.

What the rest of the depth chart looks like is still very unclear. Here’s who is fighting for the backup position, in order of signing.

Madi White #

Madi White was the antipenultimate pick of the final NWSL college draft in 2024, selected by Racing Louisville. She was loaned out to Dallas Trinity of the USL Super League, where she spent the full season as the starter. After the 2024-25 USL season finished, she appeared in one friendly for Louisville before her contract expired.

In Dallas, she was almost exactly average.

Category	g+ above average / game
Claiming	0.002
Fielding	0.007
Handling	0.007
Passing	0.000
Shot-stopping	-0.034
Sweeping	0.010
OVERALL	-.008

With a three-year contract (the longest of any Courage keeper), and the most professional experience besides Sheridan, she has an inside track on the backup role.

Molly Pritchard #

A graduate of (the) Ohio State University, Molly Pritchard holds the program record for shutouts with 32. In her final season she was the Big 10 goalkeeper of the year, a fourth-team All-American, and shut out the #1 seed in the NCAA tournament as the Buckeyes advanced to the quarterfinals.

If you dig into the advanced stats, you see even more. Among signed college keepers, Pritchard merely:

• had the highest save percentage
• had the best ratio of goals allowed to xG allowed
• was one of the most involved in possession

The potential is there for Pritchard to be a quality starter. She’s signed for two years.

Erin McKinney (non-roster invitee) #

A member of the same draft class as Madi White, Erin McKinney went undrafted. She was on the Red Stars’ preseason roster, spent time as an injury replacement in Gotham, and spent the last half of the season as a backup in Houston. In early 2025, she joined Fort Lauderdale FC for the remainder of the 2024-25 USL Super League season.

Across all those teams, she had zero first team minutes, only starting one Summer Cup game for Houston. No games == no stats == 🤷🏻.

Last season, Katie Cappalletti joined the Courage as a non-roster invitee and stuck around as a training player, joining the roster when Hensley Hancuff departed the team. That’s probably the best case scenario for McKinney.

Defenders #

• Natalie Jacobs
• Maycee Bell
• Talia Staude
• Cameron Brooks
• Feli Rauch
• Ryan Williams
• Sydney Schmidt
• Brooke Miller (NRI)
• Katana Norman (NRI)
• Ivy Younce (NRI)

The question: Who’s the first off the bench at outside back? #

The center backs are set, as well as the starters on the outside in Feli Rauch and Ryan Williams.

Until the pre-season roster was announced, the only depth at outside back was Sydney Schmidt; a player who turned 18 last week and has less than 90 minutes played at a professional level (in the USL). Beyond that, they would need to either play a center back or Dani Weatherholt somewhat out of position.

They now have three non-roster invitees who are almost certainly fighting both to fill the last roster spot and potentially be the first name off the bench, depending on how Schmidt adjusts to the league.

Here are their defensive NRIs:

Brooke Miller #

Brooke Miller "shows […] defensive reliability through positioning, recovery speed, and 1v1 defending, along with [an] ability to support the attack with overlapping runs and quality service."

That’s not me talking, that’s direct from Brooke Miller’s own website. (If she needs more IT updates, she can always talk to Cortnee Vine.)

Miller was a wing/forward for three years for the University of Portland Pilots, where she appeared in 52 matches (23 starts) and scored 7 goals. She transferred to Wake Forest, where she was asked to play fullback/wingback by head coach Tony da Luz. (Yes, that’s the father of Courage scouting director and NCFC legend Austin da Luz.)

In her new defensive role, she started all 20 games and played the second most outfield minutes on the team, finishing with a goal and five assists.

On the NWSL side, she had offseason training stints with the Portland Thorns and with her hometown San Diego Wave.

Looking at more detailed stats and how they compare to other prospects, Miller shows up as focusing on controlling and progressing possession, and off-ball defensive actions like clearances and interceptions. While her style comp is encouraging - 2025 rookie of the year Lily Reale - her overall statistical profile is not among the top wingers and outside backs in the class.

That being said, in her senior year she transferred to the toughest conference in women’s soccer (the ACC), played a new position, and not only played more minutes than ever before, but was more productive in doing so. There is potential there, especially for a more attacking fullback in the Ryan Williams mold.

Katana Norman #

Of the three non-roster invitees on defense, Katana Norman is the only one who was a full time defender in college.

Norman spent her first three years at Portland (where she was teammates with Miller). She started 55 of 57 matches and tallied five assists, and was first team All-WCC in her junior season. She transferred to TCU, starting her final 13 games as the Horned Frogs made it to the national semifinals. She finished the season with one goal and one assist.

In 2024, she was called up the Philippines women’s national team. She has three caps for them in each of 2024 and 2025.

For TCU, she was a more defensive, rather than attacking, fullback. She played safe passes to control possession, while avoiding 1v1 attacking entirely. While she did help progress the ball down the field, she was rarely producing the final ball or having touches in the box.

This lack of final third activity hurts her overall rating among wingers and outside backs. But if the Courage are looking for a more defensive option who has more experience, Norman could seize the spot.

Ivy Younce #

Ivy Younce (née Garner) is a local from Hillsborough, North Carolina, who played for the NC Courage Academy.

After de-committing from NC State, she walked on to the program at Liberty, where she was a three-time first-team All-CUSA player as a forward. In her final season, she was named the Conference USA player of the year as she finished with 18 goals and six assists in 22 games.

As noted, she played her entire college career as a attacker. While forward-to-defender conversions aren’t uncommon as players become professional, we don’t have a good statistical adjustment for her college numbers to predict success. But about those numbers…

On a raw metric basis, she was one of the standout attackers in the class, making progressive runs, attacking (and winning) 1v1s, playing final passes, and getting quality shots. For the stats that may translate to defense, she had a high success rate for both offensive and defensive duels.

There is a huge caveat: these stats aren’t adjusted for quality of competition, and the conference Liberty plays in is not one of the better ones. If we filter Liberty and Younce’s basic performance to when they played better competition, there’s a stark difference.

	Goals	Assists	Shots per game	Team record (W-L-D)
NCAA teams ranked 1-40	1	1	2.25	0-4-0
NCAA teams ranked 40+	17	5	4.33	14-0-1

She was called up to the Puerto Rico U-20 team for the 2022 CONCACAF U-20 championship; she has not yet been called into the full Puerto Rico squad.

As a local, she’s played for the Courage’s U-23 team in the USL W-League the past two years, and for the Courage TST team. She also follows two Courage title winning outside backs on Instagram (even if we’d rather not talk about one of them). The technical staff is certainly familiar with her, and must have seen something to sign her as a defender.

Midfielders #

• Riley Jackson
• Shinomi Koyama
• Dani Weatherholt
• Carly Wickenheiser
• Manaka Matsukubo
• Ashley Sanchez
• Oli Peña

Of note, the Courage list both Manaka and Sanchez as midfielders.

The question: What does Wickenheiser bring to the midfield? #

A late addition, Carly Wickenheiser comes from Mak Lind’s BK Hacken team, where she started 19 games for them in their Damallsvenskan title campaign chipping in four goals and one assist.

She played as a deep-lying midfielder in Hacken’s 4-2-3-1/4-3-3.

Over the past three years in Sweden, she’s won over 60% of her aerial duels, and scored consistently high in ball recoveries.

At Hacken she was more of a defensive ball-winner than a precision passer, and she racked up six yellow cards in her 23 appearances in 2025.

New North Carolina Courage signing Carly Wickenheiser averaged 10.44 defensive duels per 90' (61.5% won) in the Swedish league in 2025.

57.1% pass completion to final third, 53.2% pass completion to the penalty area.

— Chris Henderson (@chris-awk.bsky.social) January 31, 2026 at 5:36 PM

I would not expect Wickenheiser to get many starts over Riley Jackson and Shinomi Koyama, but she projects as a useful option to help close out games defensively. With Dani Weatherholt signed to perform a similar role, we shall see which of the two is the first option.

Forwards #

• Hannah Betfort
• Evelyn Ijeh
• Payton Linnehan
• Chioma Okafor
• Ally Schlegel
• Lauryn Thompson
• Cortnee Vine
• Olivia Wingate

Wingate is starting preseason still on the season-ending injury list from 2025.

The question: What’s the rotation going to look like? #

The Courage’s returning forwards are:

• Payton Linnehan, who become a full-time starter after a mid-season acquisition
• Hannah Betfort, who played under 30% of available minutes
• Courtnee Vine, who played under 23% of available minutes
• Olivia Wingate, who spent the entire season on the injury list

There are a lot of minutes up for grabs. Looking at their four new signings, here’s how each player might fit a role.

Evelyn Ijeh #

Evelyn Ijeh is North Carolina’s prize transfer of the window, coming from AC Milan. Over her time for the Rossoneri, she totaled 19 goals and eight assists across 47 matches. She also has one goal in three caps for the full Swedish national team. She came up as a defender (and goalkeeper!) in her youth before Pia Sundhage tried her at forward during a U-16 camp. She’s a well-rounded scorer; over her time in Milan she scored five with her left foot, twelve with her right, and two headers.

Ijeh played as the center forward in Milan’s 4-3-3. She’s been extremely durable and relied upon; she started Milan’s last 26 matches and played nearly 89 minutes per game. She averaged 2.6 shots per game over that timeframe, which is more than anyone on the Courage over the past two seasons.

Looking over some of her highlights, you can see her skills.

Here she smartly dummies to herself to beat the defender and score.

From the same match, she picks up a ball at in the final third and deftly lays a through ball in for her teammate.

Here in two successive highlights, she:

• After a turnover, doesn’t force a shot, instead giving her teammate a better one
• On the break, makes a smart move to hold up near the penalty spot to create space for her to shoot and finish

And she can also pick the ball up wide, beat her defender to a shooting position, and finish with a rocket.

Courage chief soccer officer Ceri Bowley noted that they were looking at Ijeh during the 2025 summer window as well. I’d expect Ijeh to be the starting center forward, and for her to get the majority of the minutes.

Ally Schlegel #

Ally Schlegel lined in a variety of positions in Chicago’s attack in 2025.

Between those positions, we can get a view of what she likes to do, and what she does well.

Schlegel

• connects and passes well, including final balls that lead to shots
• gets in good positions for shots, despite not many touches in the box
• is good in 1v1 situations
• presents an aerial threat (20% of her shots in 2025 were off of set pieces.)

Despite the Chicago of it all, and spending significant time in midfield, her xG/90 would have been second on the Courage to Manaka.

Schlegel is likely to be a versatile attacking option that at a minimum presents instant offense off the bench in a variety of roles, and provides a set piece threat that the Courage haven’t had recently.

Chioma Okafor #

Chioma Okafor had a highly productive college career at UConn, starting every game over her final three seasons as she was named first-team All-Big-East three years running. She finished her college career with 30 goals and 5 assists in 57 games played.

Watching her highlights shows a very direct player. She wants to pick up the ball in space and attack the back line. This includes more than just taking shots; in the below video you’ll see a number of cases where she got to the edge of the box and cut it back for teammates (who didn’t do much with most of the setups.)

Looking at her metrics, we see the same: concentrated on 1v1s, shots, and finishing. In buildup she was either an outlet for long passes, or progressing via runs of her own. Her passing was focused on the final ball once getting into position.

If Okafor is called up to Nigeria’s WAFCON squad, she will miss the early part of the season (the tournament runs from March 17th through April 3rd).

For the Courage, her likely role is as a direct option, whether they’re looking for a change-up late in games, or as an outlet if they are playing more deep and countering.

Lauryn Thompson #

Lauryn Thompson grew up in Wake Forest, and is another former Courage academy product. A Florida State commit, Thompson has played for both the England U-17 and U-19 squads, and spent prior time in the US youth setup.

Thompson describes herself as an attacking player who likes to attack 1v1.

I can’t say I’ve watched much any tape on Thompson, but she’s got the Manaka chip down at least.

As an 18-year old with no pro experience I’d expect a few late cameos as Thompson adjusts to the NWSL game. We’ll see as the season goes on if she takes a larger role.