San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Goalie among 5 picks in expansion draft
Bay FC took another step toward their inaugural season by participating in the NWSL expansion draft Friday, selecting five players, including a goalie and some potential scoring help.
Out of their six possible picks, Bay FC used five, electing to pass on making a selection from the Chicago Red Stars.
The San Jose-based club used its first pick on OL Reign defender Alyssa Malonson before adding midfielder Tess Boade from North Carolina, San Diego forward Rachel Hill, North Carolina goalkeeper Katelyn Rowland and San Diego midfielder Sierra Enge to bump the roster to 12 players.
“It’s exactly where I wanted it to be,” Bay FC general manager Lucy Rushton said. “Positionally, we can still see where we can bring in a couple of people. We have been looking abroad and want to bring in players internationally. That’s our focus now. We’ve had a good three or four solid months to acquire players in the NWSL, now we need to shift our focus internationally.”
Almost every team in the league protected itself from the expansion draft with trades made during the week with the two expansion teams, Bay FC and the Utah Royals. Just five of the league’s 12 established teams were at risk of losing players in the draft, with only two — Chicago and the Reign — eligible to lose players to both teams.
Rushton and Montoya said they were able to speak with all possible draft selections ahead of time, which gave them a guiding sense of whom to lock in on during the chaos of draft day.
“Today was about finding the best players coming into our system,” head coach Albertin Montoya said. “We were very excited with how it all came down.”
Bay FC continued their run of adding defensive players by selecting Malonson from the Seattlebased Reign with their first pick. The 24-year-old played in just four games last season after being selected as the 20th overall pick by North Carolina in 2021, having been loaned initially to a Danish club. She is under contract for one season after recently signing an extension with the Reign. In her two seasons as a pro, Malonson has combined for 16 duels won, 13 clearances, seven interceptions, and six tackles won.
She is also Auburn’s record-holder for games played a while earning SEC Defender of the Year and
second-team All-American in her final season in 2020.
With their second pick, Bay FC selected Boade, a 24-year-old midfielder, from the Courage. She made 11 starts for North Carolina last season and scored a goal with two assists. She ranked fourth in the NWSL last season with 0.63 goal-creating actions per 90 minutes and second with a 1.13 plus/minus per 90 minutes. Boade is under contract through 2025.
With their third pick, Bay FC took Hill from San Diego, their second forward. The 2017 secondround pick out of UConn played in 17 matches for the Wave last season, and she previously led the league in blocks and assists. She has 22 career goals in her seven professional seasons, and
could add some offensive pop to the developing midfield unit.
Bay FC then added their first goalkeeper, taking Rowland from North Carolina with their fourth selection. The Walnut Creek native is a 29-year-old who played in two matches last season for the Courage. She was the Courage’s starting goalkeeper throughout their 2018 NWSL championship season, when she allowed the second-fewest goalsagainst per 90 minutes at 0.56.
Rowland is also one of three NWSL players to ever win four league championships.
“Every good team needs a good goalkeeper,” Rushton said. “We’ve come into the draft having a strong feeling that we’d have a good goalkeeper available in the pool of players in this league. When we saw Katelyn’s name there, it was a no-brainer for us. We were really excited to see her name.”
The selection of Enge, a former Stanford captain and national champion out of San Diego, rounded out Bay FC’s draft. She played in 10 matches and scored two goals as a rookie with the Wave.
Bay FC will be allowed to make trades and roster moves starting Saturday morning after the league’s transaction pause ends. They could opt to trade players selected Friday night, which they might look at for allocation money to sign other free agents before the next roster freeze Dec. 29.
Utah made just two of its allotted selections, picking Elyse Bennett from the Reign and Racing Louisville forward Paige Monaghan.
Bay FC is still lacking forwards other than Hill and Scarlett Camberos, who was acquired from Angel City earlier in the week. They likely will spend time seeking help in that area over the next week of free agency before they have to have their preseason roster put together by mid-January.
Now with a most stressful day behind them, they can look forward to their first season, on even footing with the rest of the NWSL.
“If you take the draft away, the prices for those players for an expansion team become absolutely insane,” Rushton said. “Because the teams know there is a need and there’s no implications on them if they don’t make the trade. It’s essential for that reason.”