In a season filled with many milestones and many firsts, we saw one of NWSL’s most significant records broken, and seemingly with ease. KC Current forward Temwa Chawinga has captured the single-season NWSL goal record from league legend, Sam Kerr.
Chawinga passed Kerr’s record of 18 when she blasted in her 19th for the year against Bay FC on October 12th, and extended her lead further with goal number 20 last weekend against San Diego Wave FC. To celebrate Chawinga’s record-breaking dominance in 2024, let’s explore the history of one of NWSL’s most storied records.
2013 - Lauren Holiday Takes Control
For some, it might be hard to imagine, but before she was the name and face of the NWSL’s Lauren Holiday Impact Award recognizing community involvement and excellence, Holiday was a goal-scoring menace.
In the NWSL’s first season in 2013, there was everything to play for. With a clean slate of records to be broken and new standards to be set, players all over the league were jockeying for a position in the NWSL history books.
Lauren Holiday went to work for Kansas City FC, edging out Western New York Flash’s Abby Wambach and Boston Breakers’ Sydney Leroux by one, to take the league’s inaugural goal-scoring record, with 12 goals in 18 appearances.
Holiday was a threat to score anywhere, any way, any time. She could be third in line at the concession stand and still be a threat to bury one in the top corner.
But her dominance in 2013 didn’t start and end with goals, she also led the league in assists, and remains the only player in NWSL history to lead the league in both goals and assists in a single season.
2014 - Kim Little Scoring Big Goals
Despite her dominance in 2013, Holiday’s record would only last a season, because a goal-scoring Scot was about to arrive.
After years of absurd numbers in Scotland and England earlier in her career, Kim Little brought her reputation as an elite goal-scorer to the United States, and to Seattle Reign FC.
The move across the world would do nothing to stall Little’s ability to score goals, collecting 15 strikes across 22 starts for Seattle. Leaving Amy Rodriguez and Jessica McDonald behind with 13 and 11 goals respectively.
Little’s output was buoyed by her excellent record as Reign FC’s penalty taker, going 6 for 6 from the spot that season. But her composure and assuredness in the box was what ultimately took her goal-scoring numbers to record-breaking heights.
Little was excellent at timing runs and finding space in the box in 2014, often finding herself one-on-one with opposing goalkeepers, where she could slot home with either foot, or dribble around the goalie for a tap-in finish.
2014 was Little’s best goal-scoring year of her 3 in the NWSL, and her single-season tally of 16 would prove to be a tough one to beat.
2015 - Crystal Dunn So Close She Can Touch It
NWSL and USWNT fans know Crystal Dunn as a consistent, versatile player who has won trophies playing in all different positions for both club and country.
But in her breakout sophomore NWSL season in 2015, she was a tricky winger who got within touching distance of the single-season goal record Kim Little had set the year prior.
As a 22-year-old, she started the season on fire, scoring six goals in her first 8 games for the Washington Spirit. Her left foot was deadly, often cutting in from the right, or sneaking into the box to place one into the bottom corner.
At one point in the middle of the season, she scored five goals in a three-game span, including a hat-trick against the Houston Dash. But despite a good finish to the season which included a brace against the Portland Thorns, Dunn ended the season with 15 goals.
A great season, to be sure, but Kim Little’s sweet set of 16 goals still stood as the single season NWSL record.
2017 - Sam Kerr’s Reign Begins
It’s impossible to talk about the great goal scorers in the NWSL without mentioning Sam Kerr in the first breath.
Arguably the most dangerous player to ever lace up a pair of boots in the NWSL, Sam Kerr was born to score goals. The prototypical striker. The star of the show. She was impossible to deal with, giving NWSL defenders anything from headaches to nightmares for the early parts of her career.
But stints with Perth Glory and her national team in Australia prevented Kerr from getting the games it would take to challenge Little’s single-season goal record until 2017, when she arrived at Sky Blue FC ready for her first full NWSL season in three years.
It wasn’t a great goalscoring start for Kerr that season, but after only two goals in her first eight games of the 2017 season, she began a superhuman run that had to be seen to be believed.
In the middle of June, Sky Blue FC went to Portland, where Kerr scored 2. She failed to score in the following game against Chicago, but then rattled home goals in 5 straight games, including a hat trick against Kansas City.
Her five-game goal streak ended the next game against Orlando Pride, and she seemed to take that personally. Because the following game, after trailing 3-0 at half time, Kerr scored a second-half hat-trick to tie the game, only to score a fourth in the 4th minute of stoppage time to give her team all three points.
That ten game span in the middle of the season saw Kerr score a mind-boggling 14 of her 17 goals on the season, and still stands as one of the most electrifying periods of individual play the league has ever seen. If Kerr had only played those ten games, she still would have been the NWSL’s top scorer of that season, as Marta finished in 2nd place with 13.
2019 - Kerr Goes After It Again
After her record-breaking season, Kerr was traded from Sky Blue FC to Chicago Red Stars. Unsurprisingly, however, the move to the Windy City didn’t slow down her output in the slightest
It should come as no surprise that she led the league in goals during her first year in Chicago as well, despite falling one short of her record from the year before.
But in 2019, Kerr raised the bar on herself again. Scoring 18 regular season goals in only 21 games.
After a goal in her first two NWSL games, Kerr had another Kerr-like run in May and June, scoring seven in three games, with two consecutive doubles against North Carolina and Houston, followed by a hat-trick against Orlando Pride.
She continued her goal scoring frenzy to lead the Red Stars into the NWSL Championship game, before ultimately losing to the Houston Dash.
But despite the heartbreaking loss in the final, Kerr had established a new standard for goalscoring in the NWSL, and got another NWSL MVP trophy for her trophy case in the process.
2020-2023 - Can Anyone Come Close?
The years following the 2020 pandemic saw many players, both familiar and brand new, attempt to reach the heights that Kerr had reached in 2019. But it ultimately seemed futile.
2021 was a season that saw only one single player hit double digits in the goal column, as Ashley Hatch scored ten. In her first season in San Diego, Alex Morgan got a short glimpse of the record, but ultimately finished with 15, three behind Kerr. The record was beginning to feel more and more insurmountable as seasons passed.
2024 - Twenty? TWENTY?
When Temwa Chawinga joined the KC Current in January of 2024, even the most optimistic Kansas City fans could not have predicted the incredible performances witnessed over the past five months.
The 25-year-old from Malawi has set the NWSL on fire, especially towards the end of the season. After reaching the Olympic break level on goals with Barbra Banda, Chawinga elevated her game, scoring six goals in the first seven games after the NWSL’s return to play, tying Sam Kerr’s record with three games to spare.
The following week, against Bay FC, Temwa Chawinga took the ball off a defender, burst into 20 yards of space, and smashed a 20-yard strike into the corner of the Bay FC net to break the record. In typical Chawinga fashion, she then went on to grab another goal the following week against San Diego Wave, becoming the first player in NWSL history to hit the 20-goal mark.
Temwa Chawinga’s 20-goal season speaks volumes, not just about the talent and athleticism required to reach such heights, but about the league as a whole. The NWSL is evolving and the competition amongst its players is leveling up daily. Chawinga’s remarkable year has set a new baseline for what is expected and what’s to come, paving the way for the future stars to go that much higher, because after all, records are made to be broken.