Ashley Sanchez entered the season with a number in mind. Nineteen goals later, the finish line keeps moving.
First, the North Carolina Courage midfielder wanted 10 goals. Then 15. Now, after setting the National Women’s Soccer League single-season scoring record for an American player, Sanchez has settled on another number — and another record to break.
“What’s funny was, I did have a goal, and then it just kept moving,” Sanchez said. “Now, I guess it’s just 20.”
Sanchez’s latest goal, a curling strike into the top right corner in the 82nd minute against the San Diego Wave on Saturday, moved her within one of Temwa Chawinga’s NWSL single-season record of 20 in 2024. It came after Sanchez scored a hat trick in a 6-0 win over the Chicago Stars, earning her the third NWSL Player of the Week honor this season.
For the 27-year-old, this kind of scoring output would have seemed unlikely a year ago. Sanchez scored five goals in 2024 and two last season. Before this year, she had never recorded a professional brace.
Now, she has five multi-goal games, including her first career hat trick, and is the runaway leader in the NWSL's Golden Boot race with six games left for the Courage in the regular season.
“This is my first year playing this position,” Sanchez said. “I do think that I could do even more.”
The move out wide had an early believer. Sanchez said her fiancé, former professional soccer player Tommy Williamson, was one of the first people to see her potential as a winger. The two trained together, working specifically on the position long before the flurry of goals.
“He was like, ‘Oh, I think this would be really good for you in this spot. Let’s get some reps here,’” Sanchez said.
Courage coach Mak Lind said the goals are the result of qualities Sanchez already possessed.
“She has herself to thank,” Lind said. “The only thing I’ve been doing, together with the coaching side, is to make sure she understands her potential.”
As Sanchez has found a new rhythm on the field, she has also found more balance away from it.
Sanchez said she used to be “lazy” when she came home from training, but getting a second dog about a year and a half ago changed her routine. Benny, an energetic yellow Labrador, joined her French bulldog, Nala, and made sitting around less of an option.
Sanchez now takes them to the park nearly every day. Those trips have become a way to slow down, spend time in nature and ground.
“This job is a lot, and it’s chaotic,” Sanchez said. “I try to calm myself.”
On the pitch, opponents are paying increasingly close attention. Ahead of Saturday’s match, Sanchez said one of San Diego’s “Keys of the Game” caught her eye: “Silent Sanchez.”
That level of attention is unfamiliar, even for a player who made her senior U.S. national team debut in 2021 and went to the 2023 World Cup. Sanchez has 28 international appearances but has not been called into a U.S. camp since January 2025.
She said this season has not been about proving anything.
“I’ve just been really enjoying this season,” Sanchez said, “and I feel like I’m showing the joy that I’m having with the things that I’ve been able to do on the field.”
Even as the attention around Sanchez grows, Lind said her approach has stayed the same.
“It’s easy to get hyped when you hear people talk about you, but she’s so humble in what she does,” Lind said. “So that makes me believe that she’s not done with scoring goals.”
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
FILE - U.S. midfielder Ashley Sanchez (2) kicks the ball away from Japan midfielder Fuka Nagano (8) during the first half of a SheBelieves Cup soccer match, Feb. 19, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rising Thursday and recovering most of their losses for the week.
Falling oil prices and easing pressure from the bond market helped Wall Street reverse many of its moves from the prior day, when the Federal Reserve hiked its main interest rate for the first time in years and suggested more may be ahead as it tries to get the nation’s high inflation under control.
The S&P 500 climbed 1.1% and was potentially heading for its best day in six weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 346 points, or 0.7%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.6% higher.
Stocks got a boost after the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil slid 1% to settle at $104.82. That’s down from the nearly $110 it reached earlier in the week on worries that the war with Iran will keep oil bottled up in the Middle East instead of going to customers worldwide.
Brent is of course still much more expensive than the $72 per barrel that it cost earlier this summer, but Thursday’s drop helped pull yields lower in the bond market and removed some pressure on stocks. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.94% from 5.01% late Wednesday.
Higher yields make it more expensive for everyone to borrow money, from the U.S. government to people looking to buy houses to businesses wanting to build data centers. That in turn slows the economy.
The Fed on Wednesday raised the short-term interest rate that it controls, the federal funds rate, by a quarter of a percentage point for its first hike in more than three years. Officials also indicated at least one more increase may be coming this year and that the Fed may then keep the federal funds rate high through next year.
The signals sent Wall Street on a roller coaster. Stocks initially held onto their gains from earlier in the day after the Fed made its announcement Wednesday. They then slid sharply before recovering a chunk of the losses before trading ended for the day.
On the upside for markets, the shift to higher interest rates built confidence that the Fed is committed to getting inflation back to its target of 2%. Questions had begun to bubble in the summer about whether it would feel pressure from President Donald Trump, who is calling for lower interest rates. And the short-term cost of pain for the economy could be worth it if it gets inflation under control following years of staying too high.
On the downside for markets, higher rates undercut prices for stocks and other investments. When investors are earning more in interest from bonds, which are considered safer investments, they’re less willing to pay high prices for other investments. That’s beyond the effect higher rates have on slowing the economy in hopes of removing fuel for inflation.
Some reports on Thursday signaled the U.S. economy may be strong enough to withstand higher interest rates. One said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. Another said that manufacturing growth in the mid-Atlantic region was stronger than economists expected.
Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said Wednesday that a strengthening economy is one of the reasons Fed officials moved to raise interest rates after keeping them on hold earlier this year.
He also cited “geopolitics,” along with the threat that increases in prices it’s causing could filter out and push up inflation elsewhere. That’s likely a nod to the war with Iran and its effect on oil prices.
On Wall Street, stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry continued to rebound following their worldwide slide on Monday. Nvidia climbed 2.6%, and Advanced Micro Devices rose 6.3%.
That was even though OpenAI disclosed six more reports of “unexpected or concerning” behavior in AI models. Leaders of the AI industry over the weekend called for a slowdown in development to address safety issues for humanity
Stocks of several homebuilders also rose, even though a report showed the industry broke ground on fewer new homes last month than economists expected. The housing industry has been one of the hardest hit by the climb for the 10-year Treasury’s yield, which topped 5% this week for the first time since 2023 and has sent mortgage rates higher.
Thursday’s ease in yields helped D.R. Horton rise 1.5%, while PulteGroup added 0.8%. Rival Lennar erased an early loss and rose 1.1% after reporting weaker profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.
London’s FTSE 100 climbed 1.2% after the Bank of England decided to keep its interest rates on hold.
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Screens display a news conference held by Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Screens display financial information on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders pass by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
