When Miami Soccer head coach Courtney Sirmans received the text message from Caroline Mortonson, a high schooler who had already committed to join the RedHawks' program the following year, she didn't think much about it.
 
Mortonson, a native of La Grange, Ill., wanted Sirmans to know that Katie O'Malley was looking for a new program and might be worth a look from the RedHawks' staff. O'Malley had begun her college career at Illinois State University before entering the transfer portal in 2024 and already had a connection to Miami (an older brother who graduated several years earlier). She and Mortonson were former high school teammates at Lyons Township, and Mortonson's analysis of her friend's soccer skills was simple and straightforward.
 
"I just remember being like, "Oh my gosh, she's really good!'", Mortonson recalled recently. "She scored a million goals her senior year, so I texted Courtney and just said, 'She's really good!'"
 
As one might expect, a college soccer head coach's job involves getting no small number of random messages suggesting they check out players who are 'really good', so Sirmans' initial reaction was somewhat indifferent.
 
"She was like, 'I have a friend I played with in high school and she'd love to come to Miami; I think she's visiting the school in a couple days,'" Sirmans said. "I'm thinking, 'All right – sounds good.' I might have looked up Katie's clips from when she was at Illinois State [at that point]. But did we really need to add another player?
 
"Then she came on campus…and I really enjoyed walking around with Katie and her mom. After spending time with them, I started thinking, 'You know what? Mortonson's a really good player and I really trust her.' And you want attackers who have that combination.
 
"So we took the chance on Katie, not knowing that she was as special of a player as she is."
 
Then O'Malley arrived last spring for her first practice with the Red and White.
 
"The clips I had seen from Illinois State did not highlight the things she's really good at," Sirmans said. "After the first couple practices with us, I was like, 'Holy smokes! We just got an incredibly gifted player that I didn't even plan on, which was really exciting.' Full credit to Caroline Mortonson on that one."
 
It wasn't long before Mortonson's phone dinged with another message from her future head coach.
 
"She's amazing!"
 
- - -
 
In the spring of 2023, O'Malley put up 19 goals and 19 assists as a senior during Lyons Township's run to the sectional finals. Mortonson, a sophomore at the time, added eight goals and 15 assists.
 
"They were very similar with an ability to take kids on one-on-one and then grow into not just looking for goals themselves but finding open teammates," said Lyons Township head coach Bill Lanspeary.
 
"They both have really good vision and read the game well, and they had confidence in each other. They developed a sense of knowing where each other would be on the field…and just learned how to play off of each other.
 
"It was fun to watch back then, and it's exciting to know that they're going to be doing the same thing at the next level."
 
"We worked off of each other; a lot of our time together was playing together with combinations and through balls," O'Malley said. "We just knew where each other were."
 
"Katie always played left forward and I played center forward," Mortonson added. "We'd always make runs off each other and then pass and cross."
 
The RedHawks are excited to see those same sorts of combinations over the next couple of seasons in Oxford, beginning with Thursday night's home opener against Chicago State, and hope the former teammates will pick right up where they left off.
 
Just like riding a bike, right?
 
"It's always nice when you have players who have already been together before they came to college, because they know how they play. They know what each other's good at," Sirmans said. "They're both completely different offensively, which really makes it hard for defenders to defend each one of them…
 
"With Katie's dynamic of wanting to take players on 1v1 and having Caroline as an option to play in behind or cross a ball into, it's a dynamic duo that you're always looking for when you bring attacking players together…
 
"Because they have that connection already, we're really looking for them to provide some offensive production for us: creating chances for each other and also creating chances for other teammates."
 
- - -
 
Back when Mortonson joined the high school varsity team as a freshman at Lyons Township, O'Malley was one of the upperclassmen who went out of her way to make her younger teammate feel welcome.
 
"I remember I was really scared because I didn't know anyone and there were no other freshmen," Mortonson said. "Katie was really nice; just friendly and easygoing to talk to. And she'd drive me places because I couldn't drive yet!"
 
"Katie was one of the older players at the time, and we had a group of juniors and seniors that would give rides and make sure the younger players got to pasta parties and things like that," Lanspeary said. "[When people feel] included, I think that helps on the field then as well."
 
Fast forward to 2025, and it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Mortonson is far from the only rookie on her new team (eight RedHawks are in their first season at MU, including a half-dozen freshmen), but O'Malley and the veteran players in the Miami program have still gone out of their way to help their newest teammates get connected and comfortable. 
 
"Our juniors and seniors live in houses, and when we came back [early] this summer, all the freshmen lived in our living rooms for those first two weeks," O'Malley smiled. "We got really close with the freshmen and did everything with them…it was a lot of fun.
 
"When they were leaving, we were all sad that it was time for them to move into the dorms!"
 
- - -
 
While high school teammates going on to play together in college is not entirely unique, it is certainly rarer for the younger player to be the one with the pre-existing relationship and commitment to a coaching staff. That's especially true because O'Malley ended up playing for Miami in 2024, so the winger got a full season under her belt in Sirmans' program before the long-committed Mortonson joined the RedHawks roster.
 
The Western Springs, Ill. product made the most of her debut season in the Red and White, scoring a goal, picking up an assist, and earning a total of 15 starts in 19 appearances while playing more than 1,000 minutes last fall.
 
"Katie attracted a ton of attention because she does like to go at you one-on-one," said Sirmans. "In the Buffalo game, she got three of their defenders to fall over and we ended up getting a PK [penalty kick].
 
"Now everybody knows about Katie – she's fantastic. Everyone on our team knows she has this special move; When she does it, though, everyone still falls for it!
 
"It's always fun to see players like that, who are just really confident on the ball."
 
Miami went unbeaten in its final four regular-season matches last year to advance to the MAC quarterfinals, and the RedHawks' performance down the stretch bodes well for the future.
 
"The way that we ended gives us hope for how we can start the season; we learned how to play with each other best as the season went on," O'Malley explained. "We had the three best teams to beat and we did it, so when we realized we could do that, I think we can do it again."
 
That starts this week, as Miami (1-2-0) looks to extend an 11-match home unbeaten streak (dating to October 2023) when Chicago State and Tennessee Tech come to town on the 28th and 31st, respectively.
 
And while the RedHawks graduated several key attackers from last season, there are plenty of pieces for Sirmans to deploy up front, such as sophomore Millie Cook (who scored two goals in last week's win at Queens), senior Sydney Thompson, and of course the O'Malley-Mortonson tandem, just to name a few.
 
"People are probably thinking, 'They lost all this offensive production,' but we're just as good and we can be really good in certain areas," Sirmans said confidently. "I'm hoping there's tons of support with people being excited about the way that we're playing and creating chances.
 
"It's exciting soccer overall, and people will want to come and watch!"
 
And if —or when— the freshman from Lyons Township wearing No. 33 and the junior from Lyons Township wearing No. 15 connect to find the back of the net this weekend, no one in the crowd should be surprised.
 
After all, they've been doing exactly that for years.
 
Find more Front Row Features at: MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures
 
Miami Soccer begins its home portion of the schedule on Thursday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. against Chicago State before welcoming Tennessee Tech on Sunday, Aug. 31 at 1 p.m. Admission to both matches is free.