Late in the first half of a match between the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit this month, Sophia Smith and Tara McKeown battled inside the box.
It wasn’t the first time this season that McKeown had saved the Spirit with a big defensive play. Week after week, against the league’s top forwards, the 24-year-old center back has produced either a key tackle, a clearance or an interception to deny scoring chances and hold Washington’s line.
Two years ago, McKeown was on the opposite side of those one-on-one duels. When she was drafted to the Spirit from Southern California with the eighth pick in 2021, she was a forward known for her prolific attacking output, having recorded the fourth-most goals and points in Trojans history.
Since shifting to the back line last season, McKeown has developed into a defensive stalwart for the Spirit, which is off to a 6-3-0 start and sits third in the NWSL standings.
She is the Spirit’s lone player to play every minute this season. After leading the NWSL in clearances last year, she ranks high in several defensive categories this season, including recoveries, tackles won and percentage of dribblers tackled.
“I’m definitely getting more comfortable back there, and there’s still things I’m learning every day as a new center back,” she said ahead of Saturday’s match against Angel City at Audi Field. “But [this season] I think I’m definitely taking on more of a leadership role from the back and trying to help the team be organized.”
Before the full-time switch, McKeown wasn’t a complete stranger to playing defense. In U.S. national team youth camps, she played center back and outside back. In her first season at USC, she played primarily as a defender — and still managed to score the third-most goals on the team.
Mark Krikorian, the Spirit’s general manager and president of soccer operations, was familiar with McKeown’s talents as a forward, her position for her final two college seasons. In 2019, when Krikorian was coaching at Florida State, McKeown scored twice as USC upset his top-ranked Seminoles in overtime.
Krikorian joined the Spirit in 2022, and at the end of that season, he and McKeown had their first conversations about a switch to the back line. McKeown had represented the United States at the under-20 and under-23 levels, but the forward pool for the senior national team was crowded.
With her physicality and timing skills, though, if she developed in the way the Washington staff projected, there could be a route to the national team as a center back.
McKeown was amenable to the idea and made her first start at center back in the 2023 opener. That game induced its share of nerves — “I just don’t want to mess up,” she remembers — but as the season went on, she saw how the traits she had honed as a forward could translate to a new role.
She understood where attackers wanted to go with the ball and could spot when they wanted to make a run on a back shoulder. The skills used for a header goal or a flicked-on pass could also be deployed to clear the ball. (Even at center back, McKeown is still the Spirit’s No. 9, the number traditionally worn by strikers.)
She studied the play of center backs around the world, from U.S. national team regulars Becky Sauerbrunn and Naomi Girma to Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk. She learned from longtime Spirit center back Sam Staab, who had played every minute of three campaigns and helped McKeown adapt.
“I think she’s played very well, and I’m sure that the national team coaches are watching. Whether that will translate into a call-up or not, I have no idea,” Krikorian said. “But for me, she’s made the strides that I thought that she could make. She’s far better today than she was the first day she played there. . . . I thought that grew a great deal last year, and it’ll just continue on.”
This season brought a new coaching staff, a new style of play and new personnel. Staab was traded in the offseason; Annaïg Butel has been McKeown’s primary center back partner. Veteran Casey Krueger and rookie Kate Wiesner joined the back line rotation.
McKeown’s shining moments through nine games have often come in one-on-one duels, in which she is difficult to beat off the dribble.
Against Orlando on April 26, she frequently won the ball in numerous battles with star Barbra Banda — to the point that the Pride found success only once Banda switched flanks and started attacking the side away from McKeown. Against NJ/NY Gotham FC on April 20, she dispossessed U.S. national team regular Lynn Williams several times on the run.
In the final minutes of last week’s match against Racing Louisville, McKeown cut off winger Emma Sears’s path and forced a difficult angle for a 15-yard shot, saved by keeper Aubrey Kingsbury to ensure the Spirit’s 2-1 win.
“She’s such a consistent, physical presence that she’s always bodying a player, always making big defensive plays back there. I trust her a lot back there. It makes my job easier when I trust the person behind me who’s directing me and making those big plays,” midfielder Hal Hershfelt said. “She gives not only the midfield ahead of her but the whole team confidence when she makes plays like that.”
As she gets more and more reps, McKeown is growing more confident at center back. How she used to view scoring goals, she says, is now how she thinks about getting a tackle or a clearance. It’s paying off for the Spirit as it pushes to make the playoffs for the first time since 2021.
“I think this year, I’ve started to accept that role more. I get more excited when I’m defending well and winning tackles in the back,” McKeown said. “Last year, it was still like, ‘Okay, maybe I could go back forward.’ But now, I’m like, ‘Okay, you’re good back here.’ ”
