Mbappé scores first hat trick for Real Madrid as Atletico draws

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Kylian Mbappé tucked the ball under his shirt as he raised both hands to return the applause to the Real Madrid fans who savored his first hat trick for his new club.

The France star had just led a 3-0 victory at struggling Valladolid that extended Madrid’s lead of La Liga on Saturday, keeping it in position to retain the title just after the midway point of the campaign.

Gone was the inconsistent play and missed penalties from Mbappé during his first months with Madrid following his move from Paris Saint-Germain. The France captain has started pouring in goals with back-to-back multi-goal games and has Madrid in pole position with Atletico Madrid and Barcelona stalled.

“I'm very happy for the hat trick but even happier for the win,” Mbappé said in fluent Spanish. “It was very important to win after Atletico’s result because that gave us a bit more pressure to take advantage of it.”

Madrid’s fourth straight triumph in the league combined with Atletico Madrid’s 1-1 draw with Villarreal let Carlo Ancelotti’s side open a four-point gap over its city rival. Barcelona was in third place at 10 points back before hosting Valencia on Sunday.

Madrid trailed then-leader Barcelona at one point, but since getting blown away in a 4-0 clasico debacle, it has found its stride and is in championship mode.

“My adaptation to the team is over. I feel comfortable on the field and you can see that from the way I am playing with my teammates,” Mbappé said. “This gives us confidence, but you know that until the 38th round this is not over. We have to keep winning because there is a long way to go.”

The game between the front-runner and the bottom side fit its billing as a mismatch.

Valladolid could draw only one save from Thibaut Courtois in the opening moments. It was all Madrid the rest of the way even though Vinícius Júnior didn’t play as he completed a two-game suspension.

Mbappé swept in Madrid’s first goal on the half-hour mark after a flowing team attack of quick passes to weave the ball through a packed Valladolid area that culminated in Jude Bellingham’s assist for the France star.

He made it a double in the 57th by finishing off a three-against-two counterattack after Federico Valverde intercepted a Valladolid pass. Mbappé took a pass by Rodrygo and rifled in a low strike from the left side of the box.

Valladolid finished with 10 men after Mario Martín got a second booking in the 90th for a foul on Bellingham, sending Mbappé to the spot for his third.

That made it four games in a row with a goal across all competitions for Mbappé. In La Liga, Mbappé has 15, second only to Robert Lewandowski’s 16 for Barcelona. He also scored twice last weekend against Las Palmas in a 4-1 win.

“Mbappé is giving us a lot. He has found his rhythm over the last couple of months and that is obviously a boost for us,” Ancelotti said.

Valladolid was five points from safety.

Atletico's stalemate with Villarreal came a week after a shock 1-0 loss at Leganes.

Gerard Moreno, Villarreal’s top scorer in club history, made it 120 goals for the Yellow Submarine in the 25th minute after the striker converted a penalty he earned when fouled by Reinildo.

Atletico coach Diego Simeone rested Antoine Griezmann and midfielder Rodrigo de Paul for the first half. Then he made three changes at halftime, sending on De Paul and winger Samu Lino to kickstart his sluggish attack.

The moves paid off as the hosts pressed Villarreal into its box, and Lino rammed in a 58th-minute equalizer.

Simeone sent Griezmann on immediately after and the action stayed in Villarreal’s area except for two chances for Villarreal’s Ayoze Pérez, who replaced Gerard. But Griezmann’s header that bounced just wide in the 86th was the closest Atletico came to snatching a winner.

“We played a good game at a very tough ground against a team with a deep bench that is fighting for the league. We are happy,” Gerard said for a Villarreal that stayed in fifth place.

Cedric Bakambu headed in a stoppage-time winner to grab Real Betis a 1-0 victory at 10-man Mallorca.

Mallorca had opportunities until Omar Mascarell received a direct red card for a studs-first tackle of Betis’ Jesús Rodríguez in the 73rd.

The win came while Betis secured a loan deal for forward Anthony from Manchester United.

Goalkeeper Joan García made three saves to deny Sevilla standout Dodi Lukebakio and help Espanyol grind out a 1-1 draw at Sevilla.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Real Madrid's Jude Bellingham, right, tries a shot during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Jude Bellingham, left, heads for the ball next to Valladolid's Anuar during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's first goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, right, duels for the balls with Valladolid's Luis Perez, center, and Valladolid's Anuar, left, during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Valladolid and Real Madrid at the Jose Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)