Ella Hase comes (back) to North Carolina
Going into the October 8th NWSL roster freeze, I wasn’t expecting much from the Courage. They had a full active roster of 26 players, and their most pressing roster need appeared to be “getting healthy”. The team had other ideas.
On Thursday, the Courage announced they had transferred in former Duke Blue Devil Ella Hase from Racing Louisville for $35,000 in intra-league transfer funds. They also signed the 24-year old Hase to a contract extension through the 2029 season, as her contract was up at the end of the year.
To make room, they moved Ally Schlegel to the 45-day injury list. Backdating it to her original injury, she is eligible to come off of the list at any time as she’s been out for over 45 days since her injury in the August 22nd. In any case, activating Schlegel is no longer a roster concern, as the Courage later in the day sent Olivia Wingate to Gotham on a free transfer.
From Chicago to North Carolina #
Hase grew up outside of Chicago. At her youth club, she was primarily a central midfielder. Enrolling at Northwestern University, she spent her first two seasons at left back, starting 26 of her 30 appearances. In her junior season she moved up the field to wingback, recording four goals and seven assists. In her senior season with the Wildcats, she played on the forward line, where she had ten goals and three assists in 18 games.
Given another year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she entered the transfer portal, and ended up at Duke. Playing in a left wingback role for the Blue Devils, she started the final 21 games of the season, tallying three goals and thirteen assists (which co-led the team). If you watch the highlights, her assists follow a pattern. She goes to the end line at the side of the box, and either played a low cross to a runner around the penalty area, or a higher cross to a back post runner.
Two years in Louisville #
The left-footed Hase has been used in a variety of places in her time with Louisville. In her first four appearances for the club in 2025, she started at left back. She then had a run of six substitute appearances at left wing, coming on later in the game at left wing for either Emma Sears or Janine Sonis. For the rest of the season, she had fourteen starts at left wing. She finished with one goal and one assist on the season.
In 2026, she continued to be moved around the field. She started nine of her first ten appearances as a left winger. At midseason, Bev Yanez switched Racing’s system to a three center-back system where Hase was used as in a left wingback rotation. She started five consecutive games at left wingback before she was held out of Racing’s last game as an excused absence in prep for the trade.
Overall, she’s played a little under 400 NWSL minutes as a fullback, a little under 700 minutes as a wingback, and around 2000 minutes as a winger.
She also recieved a callup to a USWNT U-23 camp in October 2025, where she was listed as a defender.
What the metrics show in the NWSL #
Breaking down what she’s done in different roles shows some things that are consistent, and some things that aren’t.
When playing as a winger, she stays reasonably high and shows a lot of defensive production. We’ve all seen Ashley Sanchez’s defensive work rate this year. Hase is even more active defensively. Some of this may just be due to Racing having to defend more often.
| Defensive metric per 90 | Sanchez (2026) | Hase (2025+2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Touches in defensive half | 21.8% | 28.1% |
| Tackles | 1.43 | 2.27 |
| Interceptions | 0.54 | 0.41 |
| Blocked shots | 0.12 | 0.12 |
| Clearances | 0.77 | 1.34 |
| Dribbled past | 0.89 | 1.17 |
| Ball recoveries | 3.91 | 5.02 |
| Ground duels won | 43.2% | 33.5% |
However, this wasn’t paired with a high volume of offensive end product from the wing for Racing. She both assisted and took less than a shot per game. The good thing is that she was able to assist a number of high-value shots, especially in 2025.
When she plays further back on the field, a few trends show up.
First, her passing stats improve. As a winger, she completed over 20 fewer passes than expected across her 467 passes, and was rated as negative by ASA’s g+ passing metric. As a fullback/wingback, while she still didn’t complete her passes at a better-than-expected rate, she was a (slightly) positive passer. This isn’t her taking safer passes when playing defensively - she’s still trying to push the ball upfield.
That passing from further back shows up in creation stats as well; she assists shots at the same rate from fullback/wingback as she does on the wing.
The further back on the field, the more defensively active she is. Her defensive stats at fullback/wingback are comparable with current Courage fullbacks. (Courage stats are from 2026, Hase’s stats are from 2025+2026).
| Defensive metric per 90 | Rauch | Williams | Weatherholt | Hase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tackles | 2.42 | 2.30 | 3.08 | 3.60 |
| Interceptions | 1.56 | 1.30 | 1.34 | 1.23 |
| Blocked shots | 0.07 | 0.67 | 0.79 | 0.56 |
| Clearances | 1.64 | 3.37 | 3.08 | 3.50 |
| Dribbled past | 1.28 | 0.44 | 0.47 | 0.57 |
| Ball recoveries | 5.33 | 5.81 | 3.87 | 3.69 |
| Ground duels won | 49.2% | 54.0% | 57.5% | 55.4% |
In both roles at Louisville, she’s struggled to connect on crosses and long passes, completing 18% of her crosses and 14% of her long balls. Some of this may be a function of who she’s passing to in Louisville and how dysfunctional Racing has been this year, but neither number is overall good.
Overall, she’s played more often as a winger, but she’s performed a little better as a fullback/wingback. Most players who end up moving positions during their college and professional careers move back on the field; attacker to fullback is a common transition. Hase’s journey starting as a fullback in college and ending as a full-time professional winger would be unusual.
What Hase looks like on the field #
Racing Louisville the past two years have been a team that wants to attack directly whenever possible, which is a reasonable approach when you have Emma Sears. Looking at the tape you see how Hase tries to fit into that.
The clips here are from three games:
- A 1-0 win over Chicago in 2025, her second pro game (fullback)
- A 3-2 win over Orlando in April 2026 (winger)
- A 3-1 win over Portland in May 2026 (winger)
You can find Hase wearing number 6 for Louisville in the clips.
Constantly trying to run into space #
As part of both her nature, and Louisville’s direct system, Hase was always trying to run into space, get forwards, and in position to make a cross.
Upon picking up a loose ball near the sideline, she immediately attacks. Her cross somehow finds two Louisville attackers and a third player follows up, but they do not score.
She does the same as a winger - upon picking up a loose touch, she immediately attacks into space. Her cross this time is less accurate.
Here as Louisville combines on the left side of midfield, Hase bombs forward at fullback, and plays an early cross that is just out of Emma Sears’ reach.
If Hase sees space, she’s going to go, whether that space appears…
… from a goalkeeper throw …
… from off of a defensive corner …
… or just from Louisville controlling the ball in midfield.
Her one goal in Louisville, which sealed Racing’s 2025 playoff spot, came from her attacking the backline and getting on a throughball.
Ella Hase's first NWSL goal could be the difference maker for Louisville on Decision Day!
— NWSL (@nwslsoccer.com) November 2, 2025 at 6:33 PM
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From this, you can see why Hase has been moved up the field in her career. Being able to attack the backline with speed is an enticing option. How this meshes with a less direct North Carolina attack is to be seen.
When at fullback: aggressive in pushing the ball forward #
When she wins the ball as a fullback, she’s agressive in trying to push the ball forward to teammates, rather than just booting it into space.
Here she intercepts a pass and plays a ground pass up to Kayla Fischer, who draws a foul.
Again here on an interception she plays a first-time ball up to Fischer, who eventually gets her shot blocked.
This could tie into her lower completion percentage on long passes. She is regularly trying longer, aggressive passes in Louisville’s direct system, and isn’t always succesful like she is in these examples. North Carolina doesn’t build this aggressively, which may allow her to pick and choose more carefully when to play it long.
When on wing: getting endline to cross #
One of the things that makes Ashley Sanchez effective on the wing is that she is always a danger to go two different ways: either endline for a cross or dribble into the box, or back to the middle for a shot or a pass to a teammate.
Hase hasn’t shown that so far. When she picks up the ball on the wing, she is nearly always going to the end line on her favored left foot.
Against Portland she beats her defender and crosses to Lauren Milliet. It falls to Katie O’Kane who scores.
Against Orlando she has space to cut inside, but goes endline again and crosses to Emma Sears, whose shot is blocked.
Whether due to Louisville’s desired tactics or not, Hase’s attacking plan on the wing has been somewhat predictable. It doesn’t mean it can’t be effective. Here against Portland she hangs off the back line, breaks in, and is fouled. Katie O’Kane scores the ensuing free kick.
Because nearly all of her shot assisting is from crosses, it explains both her high average chance assisted (in 2025, over 0.2xG) and her low assisted shot rate (less than one per game). When a cross, especially an endline cutback, connects, it’s usually a very good chance. But it is hard to get those crosses through on target. Ryan Williams has a similar profile where she has high danger chances assisted from a relatively low completion percentage.
Defensive chops #
Regardless of where she plays, she is active and responsible defensively.
Dropping from wing into the midfield, as soon as she sees her teammate’s tackle fail, she rushes to cover the open attacker. Shuttling between Orlando players, she manages to prolong the play enough for her defenders to clear.
Despite Ludmila having a five-yard head start on her after a lost throw-in, she’s able to recover, take the shoulder charge, get in front of her in the box, and shield the ball out for a goal kick.
After drifting centrally to back up her center back, she recovers to an open Ally Schlegel and knocks it safely out for a corner.
Even in the 80th minute, she has the energy to sprint back and provide coverage to see out the win.
Again defending a lead late, she drops back, stands up the attacker, and then tackles it away for a clearance.
Wherever the Courage decide to play her, she should be a defensive plus.
What this means for the Courage #
Recently, Courage signings have walked off the plane and onto the field. Erica Meg Parkinson played in the second half of her first game and since then has been a full time starter. Gianna Paul has started every match since arriving in North Carolina. Bia Gomes has substitued in for every game she’s been around for.
Despite Hase coming in as a player with 33 starts in her 45 league appearances, I don’t think that will be the case here. She obviously won’t move Ashley Sanchez off the field, and Feli Rauch is an established starter at left back whose return from injury sparked some of North Carolina’s best offensive performances.
What role Hase takes will depend on how the Courage technical staff view her. In their signing announcement, Hase was listed as a defender. You could point to Ivy Younce as a putatively listed defender who doesn’t actually play for the team there, but unlike Younce, Hase has defender experience both in college and in the NWSL. For the rest of the season, I’d expect Hase to back up Rauch, and maybe make some late-game, lead-protecting appearances as a more defensive replacement for Sanchez.
The Courage do have a sneaky need at fullback. They have two very good starters in Feli Rauch and Ryan Williams, but both of them have contracts that expire after 2027. Rauch as well has only finished five of her fifteen starts this season, whether due to fitness, tactical adjustments, or cards. Behind them on the 2027 depth chart is a recovering-from-ACL-injury Sydney Schmidt and no one else. Pending free agent Dani Weatherholt has ably deputized on the left the past two years, but she doesn’t bring the same attacking thrust that Rauch does. With Hase, they have a more forward-leaning option they can deploy.
The signing of Hase mirrors the signing of Gianna Paul. In both cases there was a player the team liked coming out of college who became available for whatever reason. In both cases there was a potential need not just now but for future seasons. Getting these signings done now lets them check off some offseason work, while getting players in to settle with the team early. It’s worth noting that Hase and Paul share an agent, who in a post on Bluesky mentioned how this move coincided with Hase declining her mutual option in Louisville.
In acquiring Ella Hase the Courage get a player who can potentially fill multipe roles, has room to grow, and yet comes in with 3000 minutes of NWSL experience. Not bad for a deadline day surprise.