From Yurcak Field to the NWSL: How Rutgers Is Faring in 2026

With the National Women’s Soccer League paused for the international window, it is a fitting moment to check in on the Scarlet Knight footprint in America’s top women’s professional soccer league. Rutgers women’s soccer has spent the last decade quietly building a professional pipeline that few programs in its conference can match, and the 2026 NWSL campaign has three Scarlet Knight alumni carrying the torch across three different teams and three different career stages. These are second year forward Riley Tiernan with Angel City FC in Los Angeles, veteran goalkeeper Casey Murphy with the league’s newest expansion side, Boston Legacy FC, and second-year defender Emily Mason with the Seattle Reign. Different positions, different time zones, and different cities, yet, the thread ties back to a single field in Piscataway. Here is how each of them is faring across the season’s opening half.

Riley Tiernan (Angel City FC)

Tiernan, a Voorhees, N.J. native, has wasted no time getting her 2026 account open. The Scarlet Knight career-assists record holder, with 34 helpers to go with 38 goals across four years on the Banks, scored her first goal of the season on March 30 in Angel City FC’s opener against the Houston Dash, a game-winner that gave the second year forward her first NWSL marker since last summer. It was the latest chapter in a professional career that already produced one of the most decorated rookie campaigns in the league with a 2025 NWSL Rookie of the Month nod for April after a stretch of five goals in five matches, and a two-year contract with an option for 2027 that she earned the hard way after the NWSL eliminated its college draft.

The 2026 version of Tiernan looks like an evolution of the 2025 model, with fewer of the surprise-attack moments that defined her rookie year, more of the field-stretching forward play that drew double teams to her at Yurcak Field. A four-time United Soccer Coaches All-Region pick and four-time All-Big Ten honoree at Rutgers, including Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2021, she helped lead the Scarlet Knights to four consecutive NCAA Tournament berths, two Big Ten Tournament Championship Game appearances, and an undefeated Big Ten title in 2021, the first in Rutgers Athletics history, on the way to the College Cup that fall. The relentless motor that defined her college game has been translated cleanly, so has the production.

Casey Murphy (Boston Legacy FC)

Murphy’s 2026 may be the most consequential of the three. The Bridgewater, N.J. native and Bridgewater-Raritan product is the No. 1 goalkeeper for Boston Legacy FC, the NWSL’s new expansion club that launched its inaugural campaign this spring. She signed with Boston in December through the 2029 season, a five-year commitment with a mutual option for 2030, after declining to re-sign with the North Carolina Courage, where she had been the starter since the 2021 season.

Murphy arrived at Boston with a résumé few keepers in the league can match. She is a 2024 Paris Olympics gold medalist and has been a regular call-up to the senior USWNT since her debut in November 2021. Her Rutgers credentials remain among the best in program history at any position as a two-time Big Ten Goalkeeper of the Year, two-time First Team All-Big Ten selection, two-time All-American, and a 2017 MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalist. Her 45 career shutouts are the program’s all-time record and the second-most in Big Ten history. She was awarded the Female Big Ten Medal of Honor in May 2018.

The 2026 Boston Legacy season has put her in plenty of high-leverage moments early. On March 21, she read and rejected a penalty kick from former North Carolina teammate Malia Berkely, the kind of save that travels well on highlight reels and that the new Boston franchise will need plenty more of as it builds its identity in an established league. Murphy was originally selected 13th overall by Sky Blue FC, the New Jersey franchise that is now NJ/NY Gotham FC, in the 2018 NWSL Draft, but elected to sign with Montpellier HSC in France’s top flight first. The Boston move puts her back in the Northeast for the first time in her professional career.

Emily Mason (Seattle Reign FC)

Mason, of Flemington, N.J., has spent the last 18 months proving the kind of point clubs hope they get when they take a chance on a developmental signing. The 22-year-old defender became Seattle Reign FC’s first college signing in January 2025 after the NWSL eliminated its draft, signing on the same day she was named to the U.S. Women’s National Team Futures Camp. Her rookie season was a slow-burning success with 10 appearances, two starts, 249 minutes, but the underlying numbers were eye-catching. According to FotMob, she finished her debut campaign tied for first in the NWSL in interceptions per 90 minutes with 3.3 and blocks per 90 with 1.4. This kind of production was rare enough that the Reign extended her contract through 2026 last August with a mutual option for the 2027 season.

In 2026, she has gone from defensive substitute to fixture. Through the first five matches of Seattle’s season, Mason started in a backline rotation with Sofia Huerta, Phoebe McClernon and Madison Curry that head coach Laura Harvey kept consistent across all five lineups, a level of trust in a second-year defender that the Reign typically reserve for proven veterans. Her positional flexibility has given Harvey options to experiment with formations while keeping a Rutgers product on the field. Mason has been called up to U-23 USWNT camps in recent windows and has the kind of youth international experience that suggests she may not be far from senior consideration.

The 2026 NWSL regular season resumes after the international window and runs through the late summer before its playoffs, with the championship match scheduled for November. Three Rutgers alumni will be on rosters when the league restarts. The pipeline from Yurcak Field is not just open, it’s continuing to pump out incredibly strong talent.