SAN DIEGO (Oct. 3, 2024) – The National Women’s Soccer League announced today that San Diego Wave FC defender Kennedy Wesley has been named Rookie of the Month, presented by Ally, for the month of September.
In the month of September, the defender started in all five regular season matches for the Wave and scored a goal in the club’s match against North Carolina on Sept. 8. The Southern California native also helped San Diego to its first road win of the regular season and the first home win during the regular season since May. The rookie’s passing accuracy for September stood at 85.66% and she fell in second place in clearances (20) for the team behind Naomi Girma (27). Wesley’s defensive efforts also led the Wave to win four out of five straight matches.
Across Wesley’s rookie season thus far, she has made 16 appearances and totaled 1,223 minutes in all competitions. The defender has also scored two goals across all competitions with both coming from headers off of María Sánchez corner kicks.
Wesley was selected by San Diego as the 12th overall pick in the first round of the 2024 NWSL Draft from Stanford University. In her collegiate career with Stanford, Wesley was the all-time leader in matches played (104) and ranked ninth in games started (92), starting the final 60 matches of her career. As a two-year captain, she led the Cardinals to an NCAA Championship in 2019 and Pac-12 Championship in 2019 and 2022.
The NWSL Rookie of the Month, presented by Ally, is selected by the NWSL Media Association, a collection of writers that cover the league consistently, and the NWSL’s on-air broadcast talent.
