North Carolina Courage forward Ashley Sanchez was confirmed as the 2026 NWSL Golden Boot winner on Sunday, but her team still missed the playoffs by finishing in ninth place.
Sanchez ended the season with 20 goals, tying Temwa Chawinga's single-season record from 2024.
North Carolina defeated the Denver Summit 1-0 on Sunday, when all eight league matches kicked off simultaneously as part of NWSL Decision Day. The victory was a moot point, however, since the Seattle Reign FC defeated the Orlando Pride 1-0 to hang on to the eighth and final playoff spot.
This marks only the second time in league history that the NWSL Golden Boot winner failed to make the playoffs. Sam Kerr (2017, Sky Blue FC) was the other.
Sunday's victory was only North Carolina's second in its final seven matches of the season. Sanchez scored only twice in that stretch and was held scoreless in the final four games of the season.
Orlando Pride forward Barbra Banda finished second in the scoring race with 17 goals. The Zambia forward missed the final three games of the season, and the opportunity to chase down Sanchez for the Golden Boot and a share of the league record, because of CDC restrictions that prevented her from re-entering the United States for 21 days after playing an international match in Uganda on Oct. 8.
Sanchez played all 30 games for the Courage in the longest NWSL season in history.
Chawinga set the previous record of 20 goals in 25 games with the Kansas City Current in 2024. She scored 15 goals in 2025 and won both the Golden Boot and MVP awards in 2024 and 2025.
"I try not to think about it, but yeah, I mean, it is a very crazy accomplishment to be in the conversation with Chawinga and all this success she's had," Sanchez told ESPN in October. "But I think not until it's like done and over with [breaking the record] will I truly think about it."
Fourteen players finished the NWSL season with 10 or more goals, the most in league history.
Sanchez's personal success this season coincided with a move from a central position on the field to the wing under new Courage head coach Mak Lind.
Sanchez's 20 goals are more than she scored in her first five NWSL seasons combined (19).
Last month, Sanchez scored her first goal for the United States national team in four years when she found the back of the net against Spain in a 2-2 draw. She started that match and came off the bench in a 2-0 loss to Spain three days earlier for her first USWNT appearances since October 2024.
"I feel like I haven't processed it, really, yet, but I'm sure I'll feel really good about it in about an hour or something when the adrenaline shuts down a bit," Sanchez said after her USWNT goal on Oct. 13.
Sanchez was part of the USWNT's 2023 World Cup team, but did not see the field at the tournament.
The previous record for goals scored by an American in a single NWSL season was 15, which Alex Morgan scored in 2022 for the San Diego Wave and Crystal Dunn scored in 2015 for the Washington Spirit.
Sanchez was a youth national team star as a teenager and won an NWSL Championship with the Washington Spirit as a rookie in 2021.
She was traded from the Spirit to the Courage in January 2025, a transaction that she said at the time left her "shocked and heartbroken."
She helped the Courage qualify for the playoffs in 2024, but they narrowly missed out on the postseason with a ninth-place finish last year. They repeated that feat in 2026.