Nicole Leslie Stanton (born October 26, 1990) is an American professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

OL Reign OL Reign is an American professional Women's association football, women's soccer team based in Seattle, Washington. Founded by Bill and Teresa Predmore in 2012 as Seattle Reign FC, it was one of eight inaugural members of the National Women's S ...

of the

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...

(NWSL).

Early life

Raised in

North Bend, Washington North Bend is a city in King County, Washington, United States, on the outskirts of the Seattle metropolitan area. The population was 5,731 at the 2010 census and an estimated 7,136 in 2018. Since the closure of Weyerhaeuser's Snoqualmie sawm ...

about 40 minutes east of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Stanton attended

Mount Si High School Mount Si High School is a high school located in the Snoqualmie Valley in Snoqualmie, Washington and is a part of the Snoqualmie Valley School District. History According to the ''Seattle Times'', Mount Si High School was founded as early as 1944, ...

where she played for the girls varsity soccer team for four years. As team captain during her senior year, she received the school's Female Athlete of the Year honors and was selected to the All-Star Select Team by the

Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The newspaper was foun ...

. Stanton played club soccer for Crossfire Premier and helped lead the team to five state titles and a regional championship in 2006. She was also a member of the regional Olympic Development Program (ODP).

Club career

Seattle Sounders, 2012

Stanton played for the

Seattle Sounders Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's association football, soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club w ...

during the summer of 2012.

Sky Blue FC, 2014–2017

Stanton was signed by

Sky Blue FC NJ/NY Gotham FC is a professional women's soccer team based in Harrison, New Jersey. Founded in 2006 as Jersey Sky Blue, the team was known as Sky Blue FC from 2008 until 2020. A founding member of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) in 2013 ...

in June 2014 after playing for the team's reserve team and made 4 appearances in her rookie season. Stanton returned to Sky Blue for the

2015 NWSl season The 2015 National Women's Soccer League season was the third season of the National Women's Soccer League, the top division of women's soccer in the United States. Including the NWSL's two professional predecessors, Women's Professional Soccer (2 ...

where she played in 8 games and started 3. She re-signed with Sky Blue on October 23, 2015. In 2016, Stanton appeared in a career high 16 games with Sky Blue and started 13 of them. On January 18, 2018, Stanton was traded to the

Chicago Red Stars The Chicago Red Stars are a professional women's soccer club based in Bridgeview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. A founding member of the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league, they have played in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) sin ...

along with teammate

Sam Kerr Samantha May Kerr (born 10 September 1993) is an Australian professional football player who plays as a forward for Chelsea in the FA Women's Super League and the Australia women's national team (the ''Matildas''), which she has captained si ...

as part of a three-team trade.

ETG Ambilly FFC, 2015

Stanton spent two months with ETG Ambilly FFC in 2015 as part of the Play Football Abroad Program.

Loan to Perth Glory, 2015–2019

Following the 2015 NWSL season, Stanton went on loan to

Perth Glory Perth Glory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Perth, Western Australia. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues. Founded in 19 ...

for the 2015-16 W-League season. She played all 990 minutes of the season for Perth. Stanton returned to Perth for the

2016-17 W-League 16-17 is a band from Basel, Switzerland. Their music combines punk rock, hardcore punk, jazz and industrial music. Biography 16-17 was founded in 1983 by Alex Buess, Knut Remond and Markus Kneubühler. When the group played its first conc ...

where she once again played every minute of the season. Perth advanced to the 2017 W-League Grand Final but lost to Melbourne City 2–0. Stanton returned to Perth for the 2017-18 W-League season. She suffered a broken arm in a game on November 5, 2017, which forced her to miss a month of the season. Stanton re-signed with Perth for the 2018-19 W-League season, her fourth season with the team. Perth returned to the

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

in 2019 but lost to

Sydney FC Sydney Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was fo ...

4–2.

Chicago Red Stars, 2018–2019

In her first season with Chicago, Stanton played in 20 games for the Red Stars. She advanced to the NWSL play-offs for the first time in her career as the Red Stars finished fourth and qualified for the play-offs. Chicago lost to the

North Carolina Courage The North Carolina Courage is a professional women's soccer team based in Cary, North Carolina. It was founded on January 9, 2017, after Stephen Malik acquired National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) franchise rights from the Western New York F ...

2–0 in the semi-final.

Honors

The Women's Cup The Women's Cup is an annual club women's soccer invitational tournament hosted by Racing Louisville FC in the United States. History Launched by OnSide Entertainment, FXE Futbol, and Agrinzonis Management Group in 2021, it currently features si ...

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

NWSL Shield The NWSL Shield is an annual award given to the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) team with the best regular season record as determined by the NWSL points system. The NWSL Shield has been awarded annually since 2013 and is recognized as a ...

Personal life

She was previously in a relationship with former

and

teammate

References

External links

*
Nikki Stanton
at

Fairfield Stags player profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stanton, Nikki 1990 births Living people American women's soccer players National Women's Soccer League players Seattle Sounders Women players NJ/NY Gotham FC players Perth Glory FC (A-League Women) players Fairfield Stags women's soccer players A-League Women players Women's association football midfielders Soccer players from King County, Washington Chicago Red Stars players People from North Bend, Washington Lesbian sportswomen LGBT people from Washington (state) Klepp IL players American expatriate women's soccer players Expatriate women's footballers in France Expatriate women's soccer players in Australia Expatriate women's footballers in Norway American expatriate sportspeople in France American expatriate sportspeople in Australia American expatriate sportspeople in Norway OL Reign players American LGBT soccer players