Leading the notables for Thursday is the signing of 17-year-old center-back Trinity Armstrong by the San Diego Wave. Armstrong was a stalwart defender in her one season for the University of North Carolina and for the USA’s squad at 2024 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup.
Also on Thursday, Racing Louisville announced the signing of another rookie: Outside-back Ella Hase, who had a breakout season at Duke after four years at Northwestern, where she also played forward.
In other player news, the Orlando Pride have loaned Argentine midfielder Mariana Larroquette to Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina.
Additionally, Gotham FC has updated its website, which has greatly improved access to its news archive.
San Diego Wave: UNC center-back Trinity Armstrong inks three-year contract
On Thursday (press release), the Wave revealed its latest rookie signing: Standout United States youth international Trinity Armstrong, who anchored the USA’s backline at the 2024 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup.
Armstrong is the Wave’s third rookie for the 2025 season. The club signed forward Trinity Byars in November and defender Quincy McMahon in December.
Trinity Armstrong
- Position: Defender (center-back)
- Height: 5’6″
- Age: 17 (born 25-July-2007)
- Hometown: Frisco, Texas
- FIFA Nationality: USA
- NCAA Team(s): UNC (2024)
- NCAA Career Stats: Started 21 of 21 matches and scored one goal.
- NWSL Contract Details: Signed through 2027
- Press Release: “San Diego Wave FC Signs 17-Year Old Defender Trinity Armstrong from University of North Carolina” (16-Jan-2025)
- U.S. YNT Experience: 2024 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup and 2024 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship. Armstrong has attended at least six camps
- January 2025 Futures Camp: No
- Notables: Won an NCAA Championship with the Tar Heels in her only NCAA season, where she started every match in which she appeared, including all six matches of the NCAA tournament. Her lone collegiate goal was the game-winner in UNC’s 2:1 victory over Duke in the ACC Tournament.
Armstrong is the third of four collegiate players from the USA’s 2024 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup squad to turn pro. Last week, Penn State’s Katie Scott and Duke’s Mary Long were signed by the Kansas City Current. The only NCAA player from the U-17 WWC squad that has yet to turn professional is Maddie Padelski of Alabama (player profile). All four players graduated high school a year early.
Racing Louisville: Duke outside-back Ella Hase signed through 2026 with mutual option for 2027
On Thursday (press release), Racing announced the signing of its first rookie of the post-draft era: Ella Hase, who played one season for the Duke Blue Devils after four seasons at Northwestern.
Originally a center midfielder during her youth club days, Hase was converted to an outside-back for her first two seasons in Evanston and was then moved up to forward for her final two seasons. At Duke, Hase was used primarily as a a wing-back. (September 2024 Duke Athletics feature on Hase)
Ella Hase
- Positions: Defender (Left outside-back) / Forward
- Height: 5’5″
- Age: 22 (born July 12, 2002)
- Hometown: Orland Park, Illinois
- FIFA Nationality: USA
- NCAA Team(s): Northwestern (2020-2023), Duke (2024)
- NCAA Career Stats:
• Duke (Graduate): 3 goals and 13 assists over 22 matches (1 season)
• Northwestern (Junior and Senior): 14 goals and 10 assists over 41 matches (2 seasons)
• Northwestern (Freshman and Sophomore): 30 matches, no goal contributions - NWSL Contract Details: Signed through 2026, mutual option for 2027
- Press Release: “Racing signs Duke playmaker Hase to first pro deal” (16-Jan-2025)
- U.S. YNT Experience: No
- January 2025 Futures Camp: No
- Notables: Left-footed. Her 13 assists in 2024 for Duke is the third-highest individual season tally in program history.
Orlando Pride: Forward Mariana Larroquette loaned to Newell’s Old Boys in her native Argentina
On Thursday (press release), the Pride announced a short-term loan of Mariana Larroquette to Newell’s Old Boys through the end of June. Larroquette’s current contract with the Pride expires at the end of the 2025 season (July 2023 press release).
In her one-and-a-half seasons in Orlando, the Pride have only used the 32-year-old Argentine forward sparingly. In 2024, Larroquette appeared in just four regular season matches and was on the bench for only 15 matches. She appeared in three of the Pride’s Summer Cup matches, with one start, against Monterrey. (NWSL game log)
This is Larroquette’s second time in the NWSL. During the 2021 season, she played for Kansas City, featuring in 19 matches and scoring goals against Gotham FC and her present club, Orlando.
Larroquette has represented Argentina in about 80 international matches and has tallied over 20 international goals.
Gotham FC: Website updated, No longer using SportsEngine
This week, Gotham FC updated its website with a new predominantly black theme, which looks to be much more functional than its previous white/gray design.
Behind the scenes, Gotham’s website previously used NBCUniversal’s SportsEngine platform. The refreshed website appears to use Sanity Studio for its content management system. (Images are hosted on cdn.sanity.io.)
Previously, web links for news items used an unfriendly format using numbers (example: www.gothamfc.com/news_article/show/1325896). The refreshed website now uses a simpler format with the headline as the “slug”. Old web links now redirect to a post’s new address, so, in most cases, there should not be any issues with link rot (Wikipedia) resulting in “404” errors. (For the earlier example link, it now redirects to www.gothamfc.com/news/gotham-fc-announces-end-of-season-contract-statuses-for-2024.)
The refreshed website’s news archive goes back to March 2021 and seems to be significantly more user-friendly. On the old version of the website, attempting to view lists of press releases beyond the first page of the News section resulted in an error page. Also, the built-in search engine is fast and includes a few category filters (“Match Recap”, “Match Preview”, and general “News”).
The database conversion was not flawless as the News section is currently missing some posts from the latter half of December 2024, including the signing of Sarah Schupansky and the Williams/Miller/Howell trade.
(Now, if they would only add back all of the news items and match recaps from the franchise’s Sky Blue FC days…)
Women's Soccer Express 