Caiya Hanks

Portland Thorns'

Caiya Hanks and Portland Fire's Sarah Ashlee Barker reflect on their favorite moments of the 2026 season, the challenges they faced, and what the future holds.

But just because you don't make the playoffs doesn't mean you're not building success, right? Trying to be successful for one year.

We're trying to be successful for 10 years, 12 years.

Absolutely.

And in our corner...

We got Caiya Hanks, MAAC trophy finalist at Wake Forest.

She left Wake Forest early to come here, become a professional.

So we had Phlegm, Torden, and Neistat in the middle, which is really, really solid.

And then up top we had Weaver, Hanks, and Turner.

I think that this is, obviously without Soph, this is like our strongest lineup that we have available at this point.

We got some great names up there.

All right.

Yeah.

So, Kai Hanks, she's our golden goose at this point.

She saved us, got us a point this game, and then back on August 15th, she got the game-winning goal in her fucking return match against Orlando.