Lexington Sporting Club’s women’s soccer team wins Super League championship
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- Lexington Sporting Club’s women’s soccer team wins Gainbridge Super League championship.
- LSC defeated Carolina Ascent in the championship match at the Lexington SC Stadium.
- Lexington also won the Super League regular season championship for the 2025-26 season.
Lexington Sporting Club continues to reach new heights on the soccer pitch. And LSC’s latest result has produced a second major trophy for Central Kentucky’s professional soccer franchise.
On Saturday night, Lexington’s pro women’s soccer team won the Gainbridge Super League championship by defeating Carolina Ascent 3-1 in extra time in the league’s title match at the Lexington SC Stadium.
Regan Steigleder and Addie McCain both scored in extra time to deliver LSC its first Super League title. This capped the second season of the Super League. Lexington also won the Super League regular season championship for the 2025-26 season.
This is a landmark moment for Lexington’s women’s team, which struggled during its debut 2024-25 season and finished in last place.
Following that disappointing season, Lexington made wholesale changes to its roster. This included the offseason additions of forward Catherine Barry, midfielder Taylor Aylmer and defender Allison Pantuso. All three players were named first team all-league selections this season.
“To put it bluntly, I think (winning the Super League) would mean everything, not only for our locker room, but for this club and for this city,” Aylmer said Friday during a press conference prior to the Super League championship match.
“It was mentioned before this team went from bottom of the table to now the top, and I think that’s such a powerful message to show what can happen when you invest in women’s soccer. I think this is a big moment, not only for us as players, but for the ownership and anyone who has invested in this club, the city, the fans who showed up. When you invest in something like this, really good things can happen.”
Barry, a 24-year-old who is the all-time leading college goalscorer at South Carolina, won the Super League scoring title with 16 goals during the regular season. Barry assisted McKenzie Weinert for Lexington’s first goal in Saturday’s championship match.
Pantuso, a 28-year-old from California who has playing experience in Finland, France, Sweden and Switzerland, was named the Super League’s defensive player of the year.
Another key member of Lexington’s title-winning squad is goalkeeper Kat Asman, who also joined LSC during the 2025 offseason. Asman allowed only 0.86 goals per 90 minutes during the regular season and was one of only two Super League goalkeepers to play all 2,520 regular-season minutes.
In total, LSC scored victories in 16 of its 30 matches played across the regular season and postseason for the 2025-26 campaign.
Plenty of credit for Lexington’s on-field turnaround should be given to Masaki Hemmi and Kosuke Kimura, who both served as LSC’s head coach this season.
Hemmi began the season as Lexington’s coach and helped institute a culture and playing style that allowed LSC to go undefeated through its first 16 matches of the season.
During the Super League’s winter break, Hemmi switched jobs and became the head coach of Lexington’s men’s team in the USL Championship. Kimura, who had been an assistant coach for the women’s team under Hemmi, took over as the new women’s team head coach.
Kimura also guided Lexington to the Super League regular season championship, which the team won on a goal-differential tiebreaker over Sporting Club Jacksonville.
“They’re learners. They’re so coachable. They just want to get better, period,” Kimura said Friday of his Lexington team. “... I see a lot of connection that I haven’t seen in any other side. And then I am like, ‘You know what? I think we got something special here.’”
In the playoffs — which feature just four of the Super League’s nine teams — Lexington dispatched Dallas Trinity 2-0 in a semifinal on May 23 in front of a reported crowd of 3,235 fans at the Lexington SC Stadium. LSC got goals from Sarah Griffith and Barry in that semifinal win.
In Saturday’s title decider against Carolina Ascent, Lexington reported a sellout crowd of 7,715 fans. Carolina opened the scoring in first-half stoppage time through Mia Corbin, before LSC’s Weinert equalized in the 72nd minute.
Steigleder and McCain then bagged goals in extra time to lead Lexington to victory.
As a result of winning the regular season title, Lexington had home-field advantage throughout the two-round Super League playoffs. For Saturday’s championship match, several promotions were offered to encourage fans to attend. These included 500 complimentary tickets in the supporters’ section, rally towels for the first 3,500 fans through the gates and a post match drone light show.
Between the Players’ Shield — the trophy awarded to the Super League’s regular season champion — and the overall Super League title, Lexington’s women’s team has earned the first two trophies in club history.
Lexington’s professional men’s team is in its fourth season of existence, but it has never won a trophy or reached the postseason. LSC is currently in 11th place out of 12 teams in the USL Championship’s Western Conference.
LSC’s Super League championship is a historic moment for Lexington sports
LSC has now claimed the first championship in professional women’s sports in Lexington history.
The city has been home to several championships in women’s sports at the college level, such as with the Kentucky volleyball team in 2021 and the Transylvania women’s basketball program in 2023.
But, the city’s first title in pro women’s sports didn’t arrive until Saturday night.
LSC isn’t the first women’s soccer team that’s been based in Lexington, though.
In 2000, the Kentucky Fillies began a three-year run in Lexington as a semi-pro team in the second division of the W-League, which was a 36-team grouping within the USL. The team failed to reach the playoffs in each of its three seasons.
The Fillies — which were the first national-level women’s soccer team in Kentucky — played at venues such as Lexington Catholic High School and Lexington Christian Academy, a far cry from the 7,500-seat Lexington SC Stadium, a venue that’s located off Athens Boonesboro Road and near Interstate 75 in Lexington.
LSC’s women’s team played the first-ever match at the soccer-specific stadium in September 2024.
This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 6:58 AM.
