2024 was a transformational year in women’s college sports. From an NCAA women’s basketball tournament that shattered viewership records, to a university making its first-ever appearance in a women’s soccer championship game, history was made on an astonishingly frequent basis. Here are ten significant moments in women’s college sports that defined 2024:

1. Caitlin Clark breaks the NCAA all-time scoring record

On Sunday, Mar. 2, in her last regular-season home game, Caitlin Clark scored her 3,685th point, breaking “Pistol” Pete Maravich’s record for the most points ever scored by a Division I basketball player, men's or women's. This record topped the pile of accomplishments the legendary Clark had already amassed this year. Those included hitting the 3,000 point mark (Dec. 6, 2023), hitting the 1,000 assist mark (Feb. 11), and breaking the NCAA women’s scoring record (Feb. 15). Clark led her team, the Iowa Hawkeyes, all the way to the NCAA championship in 2023 and 2024. Now she has her first WNBA season under her belt as the new franchise face of the Indiana Fever.

2. NCAA is well represented at the 2024 Olympic Games

More than 1,000 current, former and incoming NCAA athletes traveled to Paris in July and August to participate in the summer Olympic Games. Stanford sent the most athletes to the Olympics for Team USA, with 38, but sent 51 in total, as some Cardinals competed for other countries. Notable NCAA appearances at the Paris Olympics included Hailey Van Lith, the only college athlete on any of Team USA’s basketball teams, Jade Carey, a Team USA gymnast who will embark on her final college season at Oregon State in January 2025, and Gretchen Walsh, whose accomplishments in the pool with Team USA made her a star when she returned to the University of Virginia.

3. Lexi Rodriguez establishes herself as a generational talent on the court

Year after year, Nebraska volleyball is one of the most-feared teams in the NCAA. In the 2024 season, however, the Huskers brought a new level of intimidation to the court with their libero Lexi Rodriguez, who has succeeded in the sport for years but reached a level this season that can only be described as superhuman. Nebraska fell to Penn State in the national semifinals, but Rodriguez broke the school’s all-time digs record with 1,896. She passes Justine Wong-Orantes, a two-time Olympian, for the crown. Rodriguez will make her backcourt skills known for years.

4. Wake Forest makes its first ever appearance in the NCAA soccer championship

Wake Forest University’s soccer team’s 2024 season was historic, to say the least. Though they were unable to clinch the title of National Champions, the Demon Deacons made it all the way to the championship game for the first time in program history, eventually falling to behemoth North Carolina 1-0. The season was peppered with accomplishments and milestones, like beating a No. 1 opponent for the first time in program history (1-0 against Stanford on Sept. 19), Wake Forest also finished tied for second place in the ACC with 22 points, which was the “best finish in program history.

5. Oklahoma clinches three-peat of NCAA softball championship

Everyone knows the Oklahoma Sooners softball team is nothing short of elite. But the team enshrined themselves in NCAA history by winning the softball championship for the third season in a row. The win was also the Sooners’ seventh total NCAA championship. Going back-to-back is rare, but accomplishing a three-peat is almost unheard of.

6. Flau’jae Johnson and Paige Bueckers pen deals with Unrivaled Basketball

When UConn phenom Paige Bueckers signed a deal with Unrivaled, a professional three-on-three women's basketball league based in the United States, she wasn’t even yet eligible to play. With this deal, she became the first college athlete to have an ownership stake in a league. Bueckers will play for Unrivaled after she completes her final season (2024-25) with the UConn Huskies, and will be joined by the LSU Tigers’ Flau’jae Johnson, who also signed a deal to join Unrivaled after the completion of her last season in Baton Rouge. The league, which already pushed the game forward by offering a domestic off-season opportunity for WNBA athletes to play, made history by expanding these athletic and financial opportunities to current college players.

7. Big Ten Volleyball massively expands broadcasting appearances

Volleyball is one of the fastest growing women’s sports in the United States, from the youth level all the way to the professional ranks. At the collegiate level, the Big Ten secured a massive upgrade when they announced a historic broadcasting deal in August, leading up to the 2024-2025 season. That deal, which provided television slots for 83 Big Ten volleyball matches on the Big Ten Network, FOX, NBC, FS1 and Peacock, was the most significant broadcasting deal that the sport had earned to date. It also included, for the first time in history, three nationally televised matches on NBC – Nebraska at Ohio State on Oct. 19, Wisconsin at Purdue on Oct. 26, and Penn State at Wisconsin on Nov. 9. These television deals came off the heels of the 2023 season, which shattered viewership records both in-person and on the screens.

8. 24-year-old Erin Matson wins ACC Field Hockey Coach of the Year

ESPN called her the “Michael Jordan of field hockey.” Erin Matson, who finished her playing career with the University of North Carolina as the all-time scoring leader in ACC history, transitioned from star player to head coach in 2023. As the youngest head coach in NCAA history, she led the Tar Heels to the conference championship in 2023 and again in 2024. It came as no surprise when she won the ACC Coach of the Year award, especially after leading the Tar Heels through an undefeated 2024 season, but at only 24 years old, her best remains yet to come. https://twitter.com/UNCFieldHockey/status/1853543598312316988

9. South Carolina basketball completes a perfect season

When the final buzzer sounded at the end of the NCAA championship basketball game between Iowa and South Carolina, the Gamecocks hadn’t only won the game 87-75. They had also completed an undefeated season. Led off the court by head coach Dawn Staley and on the court by 6’7 center Kamilla Cardoso, the Gamecocks became only the 10th Division I team in NCAA history to complete an undefeated season. Though NCAA phenom Caitlin Clark was on the losing end of the championship game, the match-up, and the season in general, ushered in a new, triumphant era for women’s college basketball.

10. LSU basketball star Flau’jae Johnson drops her first album

After an unforgettable 2023-24 NCAA women’s basketball season, in which Flau’jae Johnson’s team, the LSU Tigers, made it all the way to the Elite Eight, one might’ve thought she’d use the offseason to rest and recuperate. Instead, the guard dug deep into her side project – rapping – and dropped her first EP, Best of Both Words, in June. The part-time baller, part-time rapper, is the daughter of the late rapper Camouflage and featured his photo on the cover art. The record also features Louisiana native Lil Wayne. Johnson is in the midst of her junior year at LSU and still has another season to play, but, per a Rolling Stone interview, she has her ambitions set on rapping. “I believe I’m gonna be one of the biggest artists in the world,” she said in the interview. “Period.”