Ashley Hatch’s tumultuous journey to the 2024 NWSL Championship

Ashley Hatch is on the verge of winning her second NWSL title on Saturday, but her road to the championship included plenty of bumps.
The 2023 season was difficult for Hatch, she told the Deseret News in April. She was left off the U.S. women’s national team’s roster for the 2023 FIFA World Cup and then Hatch’s Washington Spirit failed to make the NWSL playoffs.
The 2024 season showed more promise. Roughly two weeks before the start of the season, Hatch signed a three-year extension with the Spirit, which would keep her in D.C. for nearly a decade. She felt “super honored” that the Spirit wanted to keep her.
“I think it means that they value me, and I think it’s awesome to be in a place where you feel valued,” she said a month after the extension. “It means a lot that they trust me and value me.”
But by June, Hatch had been relegated to the bench, having only scored two goals six games into the season.
She had been demoted from her starting role briefly for three games before it became semipermanent. She’d spend the next five games as a bench player playing limited minutes.
Hatch had started every game in the 2023 season.
“I feel like I’ve experienced everything in my career: being a bench player, being a starter, somewhere in between, national team experience, coming back to the Spirit, being traded. So I kind of just saw it as another experience that I knew that I could overcome,” she told the Deseret News in October.
Hatch has been resilient. Rather than focusing on being disappointed, she kept working hard, waiting for another chance to help the team.
“I think knowing that at some point the team is really gonna need me and wanting to be ready for that, that really motivated me, even if I wasn’t seeing minutes at that particular time. I wanted to be ready for whatever was asked of me, and if the team needed me, I wanted to feel confident enough that I could step up and help the team and play like myself and be myself,” she said.
Hatch returned to the Spirit’s starting lineup in September. Two games into her return, she started what would become a late-season scoring surge.
In the last seven games of the regular season, Hatch scored five goals.
“I’ve just been making sure that I show up every single day and work really hard for whatever opportunity I’m given, and so getting the opportunity to get more minutes and to start, I’ve been super hungry for it and just ready and waiting for any opportunity,” Hatch said. “I think that’s where it’s coming from. It’s just lots of hard work every single day at training and just being hungry for any opportunity.”
What’s been Hatch’s goal-scoring secret?
“I think just working hard every single day, honestly. Even though this season has looked a little bit different for me as an individual, the team has been playing really well, and everyone’s been working really, really hard,” she said.
Her seven goals have pushed her up the NWSL’s all-time leading scorer list. She’s currently in fifth place with 53 NWSL regular season goals, one goal back of sharing sixth place with Jess McDonald, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Hatch also made history as the 35th NWSL player to play in 150 games, a rare feat.
For context, Alex Morgan, who was part of the NWSL’s first season, didn’t reach her 150th cap until her final game before retirement in September. Morgan had two brief stints playing overseas in her 12-year NWSL career. Fellow national team player Megan Rapinoe retired before hitting 150.
Hatch has come up big for the Spirit this season. Her scoring surge makes her the Spirit’s third-leading scorer this season. She’s only one goal shy of tying team leaders Trinity Rodman and Ouleymata Sarr, who both have eight goals.
Last week’s semifinal match against defending champions Gotham FC went to overtime after Hatch’s teammate scored the equalizer in stoppage time.
Neither Gotham or the Spirit could break the deadlock in the following 30 minutes, so the game went into a penalty shootout to determine which team would advance to the final.
Hatch stood up to take the Spirit’s first penalty of the penalty shootout. The former BYU Cougar has a perfect penalty conversion rate and it held true Saturday as she notched the first penalty.
Two of her teammates successfully converted theirs and Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury blocked Gotham’s first three penalties to punch the Spirit’s ticket to the championship.
The Spirit have played both of their two playoff games at home but will have to carry that success to Kansas City at CPKC Stadium.
The Spirit play the Orlando Pride on Saturday at 6 p.m. MST in the 2024 NWSL championship.
The championship will be broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.