On February 13th, 2024, the USL W League announced the 2024 division & conference alignments. Same as last year, conference doesn’t mean much of anything for our Girls in Blue. While playoff plans are not currently set for the 3rd season of the ever-growing league, Indy fans can expect the plan to remain the same. Win and you’re in.
Indy looks to continue divisional success coming off of their 2023 Valley Division Championship. Meanwhile, Lexington SC, St. Charles FC, Kings Hammer FC, & Racing Louisville will look to thwart Indy’s hopes at a 3rd divisional title and repeating last years playoff success when Indy won the championship on July 22 by a score of 2-1 in front of the home crowd. This will be the 3rd straight year Indy will square off against Kings Hammer & Louisville, while being just the 2nd year against Lexington & St. Charles.
How’d Indy fair last year against the division? Let’s break it down. In 3 matches against St. Charles, Indy only dropped 3 points in their only loss of the season. With a +22-goal differential, it showed that the 1 game St. Charles caught Indy, was just a fluke. Indy also faced Lexington 3 times, coming away with 3 points in all 3 matches & a GD of +8. Kings Hammer was a 6-point swing in favor of Indy and a +5 GD. Although there currently is no version of The Barrel in the women’s LIPAFC, Indy has retained the rights to such trophy after a quick 4 points with a +2 GD in their 2 matches.
This year’s schedule may prove a little difficult for fans to attend. Only 2 home matches take place on Friday or Sunday, the other 3 will be mid-week matches. The first home game taking place Monday May 20th at 7:00pm at the Grand Park Event Center in Westfield, IN. Our Girls in Blue will kick off their season on the road on Tuesday May 14th at 6:00pm for the first of 3 LIPAFC matches this season.
In the 2 years of league existence, Indy is 18-3-1 across 22 regular season matches. This year, Paul Dolinsky and company will look to continue past success. In a brief side chat during a men’s preseason match, Dolinsky mentioned that they are bringing in young talent. That proved successful back in 2022 when the ladies went on to win the Grand Lakes Division prior to taking a hard-fought loss in the playoffs to 2022 runner ups, Minnesota Aurora FC. 2023 did see an overhaul of new players while also retaining key players from the inaugural season. That roster is what brought the Indy Eleven organization their first USL championship. We don't anticipate any roster information until late April or early May.
For more information about our Girls in Blue: https://www.indyeleven.com/wleague/
For more information about the USL W League: https://www.uslwleague.com/