San Diego Wave FC 2022 Player Postmortem: Taylor Hansen

Taylor Hansen was part of San Diego Wave FC’s enormous rookie class in 2022, and did her part along the way.

The undrafted defender, coming out of the University of Montana, was a trialist in preseason and did enough to earn a contract with the expansion team. The first from her school to make it to the NWSL, she made history for the Grizzlies when she started against OL Reign in the road Challenge Cup game in Washington in April.

Starting at left back for the match, Hansen featured for over an hour on her professional debut. Considering she is a San Diego County native, it was really cool to see her get minutes with the hometown club.

Here’s Hansen’s stats with San Diego in 2022:

And that ended up being it for Hansen on the field with Wave FC. I don’t think anything in that one game really showed she was out of her depth, but it’s also not a big sample size to really dig into her game, either. Ultimately, Casey Stoney chose other players on the field.

As for what’s next, Hansen is officially out of contract and won’t be returning to Wave FC in 2023, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you see her pop up somewhere else. Several former Montana players have landed at clubs in Europe, and there’s usually a brisk market for NWSL players leaving clubs within the league, especially for depth players like Hansen. So I could definitely see her in a new environment next year, fighting for playing time. We’ll see what the future brings, but Hansen has already gotten her feet wet on the professional level.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.