The Olympic Club’s Women’s Soccer Team won three-straight United States Adult Soccer Association National Championships in 2014, 2015and 2016.
The Olympic Club sponsored its first women’s soccer team in 2002, and many players on the squad were among the first girls to join the Club in the early 1990s. The team won its first local league title in 2007, and in 2009 began reeling off 14 consecutive Golden Gate Women’s Soccer League titles.
And then came the National Championships. After reaching the semi-finals in Kansas City on the team’s first trip to Nationals in 2013, the team went on to defeat Cobb United of Georgia to win its first National Championship in Auburndale, Florida in 2014, recording four straight shutouts and tallying 28 goals. Depending on their fitness to push through adversity, the team developed a smart, creative style of play that helped them put away teams. “We know how we are supposed to move, and we can all play multiple positions,” Molly Hellerman noted later, “It is not out of character to see one of our defenders finish a header to tally a goal for the team.”
The team repeated as National Champions in 2015, pushing through heat, humidity, exhaustion and early round loss to rival New York Athletic Club, to defeat ASA Charge, 2–0, in the championship final. And the team three-peated in Denver in 2016, outscoring their opponents 14–2, and defeating United FC Atlanta 2–0 for the Open Division National Championship.
Over the three-year championship run,the team developed their own formula for success. J.T. Hanley, head coach in 2015 and 2016, argued that “The core of what we have here as a team — the trophies, medals and banners — would mean nothing if there wasn’t a foundation of community, self lessness and love underpinning everything we do.” When long time players went down with injuries, everyone else stepped up. Kelly Birch noted that it was more than talent that helped bring the trophies home; it was that each person’s “desire to win for ourselves, for one another, and for our Club” could not be matched.
Consistency helped as well. While the team’s roster varied from season to season, several Olympians played on all three National Championship squads. Danielle Brunache, who co-captained two of the teams, noted that the players’ common values including “humility, hard work, competitiveness and fun … benefit the team on the field and our Club off — our girls are everywhere!” Indeed, other notable members of the teams included Tracy Hamm (current head coach of the UC Davis Aggies) and Molly Hellerman (OC Foundation President in 2019).
In addition to playing together, the team hosts youth clinics, developing the next generation and teaching young girls what “Play Like a Girl” can mean.
