There is a version of the 2025 Division III women’s soccer final where Emory holds on. The Eagles had the lead, they had the better of the run of play for stretches, and they had a WashU side that had gone the entire season without losing but had also spent most of December scraping by on one-goal margins.
Then came a ninety-second window in the second half that decided a national championship.
Washington University in St. Louis beat Emory 2-1 at Kerr Stadium in Salem, Virginia, on December 6 to win its second consecutive NCAA Division III title and the third in program history. All three have come in the last ten years. All three have come under the same head coach.
The goals
Emory struck first, and it was a good one. In the 22nd minute, Kaitlyn Nimmer picked out Madison Teng, who lifted a shot into the upper left corner. For the next 45 minutes of game time, that goal looked like it might be enough — WashU had scored one goal in each of its previous three tournament matches and had needed penalties to survive the semifinal.
The equalizer arrived about 22 minutes into the second half, and it came from a first-year student. Olivia Clemons laid the ball off short to Monica Morales-Martinez, who found the top right corner. One-one.
Less than two minutes later, Cami Colpitts hit almost the identical spot from the top of the box. Two-one.
Emory never generated a clean look at an equalizer after that. WashU’s back line — which allowed three goals across six tournament matches, and never more than one in a game — closed it out.
What the win meant
The scoreline undersells how much history was packed into the afternoon:
- Jim Conlon’s 500th career victory. Hard to script a better one. Conlon has coached all three of WashU’s national titles (2016, 2024, 2025).
- A second straight unbeaten season. The Bears finished 21-0-3 after going 23-0-2 in 2024. That’s 44 matches without a loss across two seasons.
- WashU’s 28th team national championship as an athletic department, and the school’s first back-to-back titles in any sport since men’s basketball in 2008 and 2009.
Individually, Morales-Martinez, Colpitts, sophomore Kassidy Lanthier, and junior Sophie Viscovich all made the NCAA All-Tournament Team. Clemons — who assisted the equalizer — was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Offensive Player for the second year running.
Conlon, for his part, kept it about the group, crediting his players for “being sisters for each other” all season.
The road there
The 64-team bracket opened November 14. WashU’s path was lopsided early and then brutally tight:
| Round | Opponent | Result |
| First round | Wilmington | W 7-0 |
| Second round | North Central (IL) | W 5-1 |
| Sectional | MIT | W 1-0 |
| Sectional final | Messiah | W 1-0 |
| Semifinal | Chicago | W 1-1 (10-9 PKs) |
| Final | Emory | W 2-1 |
Twelve goals in the first two matches, four in the last four. The semifinal against Chicago is the one that will get retold: a 10-9 penalty shootout, which means both teams went five rounds deep into sudden death before someone blinked.
The UAA had a very good December
Worth pausing on this. Three of the four semifinalists — WashU, Emory, and Chicago — all play in the University Athletic Association. The national championship game was a conference rematch. So was the semifinal that got WashU there.
For Emory, it’s a second runner-up finish; the Eagles also lost the 2012 final to Messiah. Getting to Salem and losing by a goal to the two-time defending champion is not a season anyone should apologize for.
The bottom line
Two titles, two unbeaten seasons, a coach at 500 wins, and a roster where the players who decided the final were a first-year and two sophomores. The rest of Division III should probably get used to seeing red and green in Salem.
Related: West Coast Conference Women’s Soccer Schedule 2026 · NIL Women’s Basketball: Empowering Female Athletes · Browse women’s soccer programs on RallyFuel
