Oregon’s solely skilled girls’s soccer workforce has re-signed star midfielder Olivia Moultrie, who drew worldwide fame 4 years in the past as the youngest lady to enter American professional soccer.
FILE – United States’ Olivia Moultrie (13) throughout the first half of a global pleasant girls’s soccer match, Oct. 26, 2025, in East Hartford, Conn.
Jessica Hill / AP
The Portland Thorns mentioned Moultrie’s contract will now lengthen through 2029. The announcement comes days after the Thorns secured a spot in the playoffs, the membership’s eleventh time making the postseason.
“I want to be the best player in the world someday,” Moultrie mentioned throughout a Tuesday press convention in Portland. “Those are my goals and this club is behind me in that, and that’s part of why I want to be here — and I want to be somewhere where we can win.”
The 20-year-old was U.S. Soccer’s Young Player of the Year in 2023. Moultrie additionally made 10 appearances with the nationwide workforce, lately scoring a pair of targets in a 3-1 victory over Portugal.
Her dedication to Portland comes as girls’s sports activities are quickly rising in reputation. The homeowners of the Thorns, funding agency Raj Sports, are working to model Oregon as the epicenter of ladies’s sports activities, as they’re launching a WNBA workforce in Portland forward of subsequent season. Both the NWSL and WNBA are including groups as attendance and viewership proceed to climb for each leagues.
Moultrie signed with the Thorns in 2021, at 15, after suing the NWSL over a rule prohibiting gamers underneath 18. At the time, she was the youngest participant in the league.
Moultrie has appeared in 95 NWSL matches with the Thorns, together with 65 begins, scoring 18 targets with 11 assists.
“Looking towards the future, I feel like Portland gives me the opportunity to continue to grow into the player that I want to be long term,” Moultrie mentioned. “I feel like we are just set up in a place that, obviously, the city and the culture here, it revolves around soccer.”
Moultrie leads the Thorns with eight targets this season and has appeared in 26 video games with 24 begins. Portland completed third in the league standings and made the playoffs for the ninth straight season.
The Thorns, who gained league championships in 2013, 2017 and 2022, will host the San Diego Wave in a quarterfinal match on Sunday.
“We are thrilled to extend Olivia as a Thorn for the foreseeable future,” mentioned Jeff Agoos, Portland’s president and basic supervisor. “We have seen her playing arc see tremendous growth over the course of her development in Portland. Her on-field capabilities, her sheer competitiveness, and the maturity off the pitch has established her as one of our nation’s brightest young stars.”
Moultrie was additionally awarded the 2025 Supporters Player of the Year by the Rose City Riveters, Portland’s supporters group.