Utah Royals’ KK Ream, 16, becomes youngest goalscorer in NWSL regular-season history

Sixteen years and 52 days.

There are now enough 16-year-olds in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) that days must be included to define the margins between them.

And on Friday night, 52 days after her 16th birthday, Utah Royals forward KK Ream scored a late goal against the Portland Thorns to become the youngest goalscorer in the league’s regular season history with those margins.

The Utah-native broke the record held by Alex Pfeffier, who was 16 years, three months, and 20 days old when she scored for the Kansas City Current on March 16, 2024. Before Pfeffier, the record stood for nearly two years, held by Ream’s opponent on Friday, Olivia Moultrie. Moultrie was 16 years, nine months, 26 days old when she set the record on June 12, 2022.

Ream’s goal in the 85th minute sealed the Royals’ 2-1 victory over the No. 6-seeded Thorns at a packed Providence Park.

“It just shows how hard I’ve been working to just get minutes on the field, and I’m just grateful to contribute to the team in the best way that I can,” Ream said after the match to the CBS broadcast, standing alongside Royals’ goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn, who impressed with 11 saves that night.

The 16-year-old entered the match in the 80th minute. With Utah up 1-0, Royals forward Bianca St-George carried the ball downfield and fired the first shot, which was saved by Thorns ‘keeper Mackenzie Arnold. The ball ricocheted back into the penalty box in front of an eager Mina Tanaka, but Arnold blocked that attempt, too.

Ream, who had just leapt out of the way from Tanaka’s shot, was slightly off balance when she struck the ball toward the far post with her left foot; it was an instinctual move and not the most elegant, but no matter. They all count the same.

The goal represents the second time that Ream has struck her name down in the league’s archives. On May 3, when she was still 15 years old, she became the youngest player to start an NWSL match.

In just their second win of the season, the victory is unlikely to propel a miraculous playoff push for Ream and the Utah side, who occupy the 13th of 14 places in the NWSL table. But the magnitude of her impact at such a young age surely offers a glimpse of possibility for a team that has been battling a string of injuries and recently lost its 2024 No. 1 draft pick, Ally Sentnor, to the top-seeded Kansas City Current during the summer transfer window.

According to Royals manager Jimmy Coenraets, Ream’s development has been a more pressing topic of conversation within the club in recent weeks.

“We had a conversation with the front office and we just made very clear what and how (we need) for the long term, and I think KK is definitely a player that we want to develop further,” he said in a postgame press conference.

Before the match, the staff decided that, regardless of the result, Ream needed minutes. Her time on the pitch had been inconsistent or nonexistent in recent weeks. For Coenraets, she has to “get herself into the game and just prove what she’s worth.”

Coenraets pointed out that Ream began that campaign in earnest as soon as she hit the pitch Friday night, stealing a ball and distributing it to St-George, whose shot went wide of the goal.

“That could potentially have been already 2-0,” he said, “but she showed a lot of courage. She showed a lot of guts for a 16-year-old, and I think that’s just amazing.”

When asked how her own game has grown since beginning her professional career, Ream didn’t shy away from her quality as a youth player, but still acknowledged how that quality was put into context when she became a pro.

“I think coming to the NWSL, I definitely was a good player,” she said after the game, “but coming into it, there’s definitely a lot more good players. I have a lot of players on my team that I can learn from, as there’s a lot of leaders and they can just help me grow, and so I think they’ve all done a great job in helping me with that.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.