Portland Thorns select Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver #1 and #2 overall in the NWSL Draft

The Portland Thorns made a flurry of moves down the wire to get in position for the top two players in the NWSL draft, selecting two star college forwards and surprising a few with the second choice.

A late move up the draft order landed them the #2 overall pick from the Chicago Red Stars (who had just acquired it from Sky Blue FC) for the 15th and 16th overall picks and an unspecified amount of allocation money, which they used to select Morgan Weaver.

Smith, who just completed her sophomore year at Stanford, scored 24 goals in 33 games of her college career. Weaver scored 43 goals in 85 appearances.

Smith was called up to the full national team even before she ended up at Stanford, appearing in USWNT camp in 2017 at 16 years old. Most recently, she was called into USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski’s player identification camp in November and was one of only three players to be then selected for the full national team camp in December.

The Thorns traded Emily Sonnett, the rights to Caitlin Foord and the 7th and 14th pick in the NWSL draft to move up to select #1 overall.