Soccer

Aubrey Kingsbury leads Spirit back to NWSL final, knows she's using her gifts 'to glorify Him'

By Joshua Doering Nov 20, 2024
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Aubrey Kingsbury isn’t shying away from the comparisons. In 2021, she and the Washington Spirit won the NWSL Championship after holding a lead during normal time in just one of their three playoff games. They came from behind in the semifinal and the final.

Three years later, the Spirit are back in the championship game again. They have not held a lead in normal time and had to come from behind in both of their playoff games. Their equalizing goals came in the 86th and 93rd minutes.

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“I have similar feelings, honestly, as ’21,” Kingsbury said after Saturday’s seminal victory over defending-champion Gotham FC. “Kind of like, that felt like destiny, and I would say the same thing [this season]. … There’s just this belief, similarly as ’21, this belief that we’re never out of it. That whatever you throw at us, we’re going to find a way to win.”

Hal Hershfelt’s equalizer in stoppage time sent Saturday’s match to extra time and eventually a penalty shootout, where Kingsbury made three consecutive saves to send the Spirit to the final.

“I wasn’t nervous at all,” she said in the postgame press conference. “It’s just like another day at training. I’ve made those saves many times in our trainings, so I think that then helps prepare me emotionally for those big moments when the season is on the line.”

Kingsbury, who turns 33 on Wednesday, arrived in Washington in 2018 and immediately took over as the team’s starting goalkeeper. She was named NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year in 2019 and 2021, and earned her first call-up to the U.S. women’s national team in 2019.

After an uncharacteristically poor 2022 season, Kingsbury shifted her focus back to the things that made her one of the top goalkeepers in the NWSL. That meant finding freedom through her strong faith in God. In 2023, she was part of the U.S. World Cup team that lost to Sweden in the round of 16 and partnered with Compassion International to promote the One Girl Can Change Her World campaign during the tournament.

“Having made the World Cup roster not being willing to compromise who I am as a person, as a Christian, being called to love and serve one another, I think that’s kind of an important theme in my life,” she said in a feature for the Spring 2024 issue of Sports Spectrum Magazine. “I think that’s important for people to know, that you can be successful in your career — whatever that may be — and you don’t have to compromise your values.”

Kingsbury and her twin sister, Amber, attended the Ultimate Training Camp run by Athletes in Action when they were in college. The camp helps teach athletes how to glorify God through their sport, and it was one of the defining moments of Kingsbury’s faith journey.

“It kind of took the pressure off, knowing that the Lord gave me these gifts, and I was going to use them to glorify Him and make it my act of worship. … I just have always kind of seen my faith and soccer intertwined,” she told Sports Spectrum.

Now in her 11th year as a professional, Kingsbury’s career has taken her to three different continents — she’s played in Europe and Australia in addition to the U.S. — and provided many special moments. She knows they are all a blessing from God, which helps her not take anything for granted.

“The Lord has put me in incredible places where I didn’t think I would ever be, so I think that that mindset helped me,” she told Sports Spectrum. “I’ve never felt this bitterness of not playing or any sort of entitlement. He’s given me these gifts and I try to hold them with an open hand.”

Awaiting Kingsbury and the Spirit (18-6-2) in Saturday’s championship game is her former team, the Orlando Pride (18-2-6), who set the NWSL points record (60). Kickoff from CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, is set for 8 p.m. ET and the game will be shown on CBS.

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