USWNT World Cup roster includes Cincinnati athletes Rose Lavelle, Aubrey Kingsbury
The U.S. Women's National Team World Cup roster announced Wednesday features a few familiar faces from Cincinnati's Girls Greater Catholic League schools St. Ursula Academy and Mount Notre Dame.
St. Ursula Academy graduate Aubrey (Bledsoe) Kingsbury and Mount Notre Dame alum Rose Lavelle were among the 23 women head coach Vlatko Andonovski named to the World Cup roster.
Here's what we know about these Cincinnati soccer players:
Who is USWNT goalie Aubrey Kingsbury?
This is Kingsbury's first World Cup with the national team. Her first cap occurred April 12, 2022, in a 9-0 shutout against Uzbekistan in Chester, Pennsylvania. Her shutout made her the eighth goalie in WNT history to record a clean sheet in her first cap. She was also the oldest goalie at age 30 to make her first cap in WNT history.
She played for the 2007 and 2008 state-champion St. Ursula Academy Bulldogs and was a three-time All-American for Wake Forest University. She graduated in 2014 with a degree in health and exercise science as well as minors in chemistry and biology.
The Orlando Pride selected her in the 2016 National Women's Soccer League Expansion Draft. She currently plays for the NWSL's Washington Spirit.
As for her family, she is the wife of Matt Kingsbury, whom she married in December 2021, and the daughter of Char and Paul Bledsoe. She has a twin sister, Amber, and two brothers, Micah and Brett.
Who is USWNT midfielder Rose Lavelle?
This is her second World Cup after having a breakout 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France when she scored a goal in the 2-0 final win over the Netherlands and cemented her international stardom. She earned her first cap March 4, 2017, after she joined the Victory Tour following the 2015 Women's World Cup. She played all six games in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, scoring one goal against New Zealand for the bronze-medal team.
The college All-American played for the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she had a career 19 goals and 14 assists. In the 2016 preseason, "Top Drawer Soccer" ranked her the No. 1 player in the country.
She had been the Boston Breakers' first overall pick in the 2017 NWSL College Draft, playing for that team for one season until it disbanded. Lavelle then became the first overall pick in the dispersal draft to the Washington Spirit, where she played three seasons before the team traded her rights to OL Reign in August 2020.
Lavelle joined the OL Reign, a team out of Seattle, Washington, in May after spending some time in Manchester City in the Women's Super League.
She is the daughter of Marty and Janet Lavelle. She has three siblings, a brother, John, and sisters Nora and Mary.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati's Lavelle, Kingsbury make 2023 USWNT World Cup roster
