July 7, 2025
It came down to just one point.
A 3-2 win, on the road, over FC Dallas Women, in the final game of the season put Austin Rise FC at the top of the Lone Star Conference by a single point winning the club’s second consecutive Lone Star Conference title.
In one of the tightest conference races of the season, Austin Rise FC picked up three points in its final game of the regular season to earn the Lone Star Conference title by a single point.
This is the second consecutive Lone Star Conference title for Austin in its two WPSL seasons.
“It's always special to be able to win this conference, especially for as competitive as so many of these games are,” Bethany Cyrtmus-Duval, Austin Rise FC co-founder, said. “We have a number of returning players so it's wonderful for them to be able to celebrate back-to-back conference titles. For our new players, it's terrific for them to have that experience of coming into a brand-new club, competing at the top level and bringing home a conference championship.”
Austin went 7-1-2 this season, experiencing several bumps along the way including its first loss at home. It was a pair of home losses, in fact, back-to-back, that Austin’s second conference title in peril.
“One of the biggest challenges we had faced this season was bouncing back from a couple late season home losses,” Cyrtmus-Duval said. “As a club, we had never lost a match at our home stadium in three years, so it was a bit of a shock not only to lose one home match but to lose back-to-back home matches. It caused the girls to take a serious gut check of where we stood and they bounced back brilliantly with a huge 3-2 road win at FC Dallas to lock in the conference championship.”
The club was led by Katie Gernsbacher with eight goals in nine appearances. She also led the conference in scoring. Second in scoring was Emma Torres (Texas Tech University 2025- ) with four goals in six appearances.
At the other end of the pitch, Austin’s goalkeeping corps conceded eight goals over ten games, for a .8 goal against average, keeping five clean sheets.
As Lone Star Conference champions, Austin Rise FC advances to the Central Region Playoffs July 12 and 13 in Oklahoma City, with the winner advancing to the WPSL Championships July 18 and 20 in Stillwater, Okla.
