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Bay FC midfielder Claire Hutton always knows where forward Alex Pfeiffer is on the pitch. It’s not quite a sixth sense they’ve developed through three years as pro teammates. 

It’s the giggles. 

Hutton, a rising U.S. women’s national team talent with 16 caps, is confident and collected on the ball. But when there’s a rare misstep — or, more frequently, a tumble for a star who considers herself “clumsy” — the laugh coming from the right wing is unmistakable.

On the field, the pair are anchors of Bay FC’s present and the rising stars of the NWSL’s — and potentially the U.S. women’s national team’s —  future. They’re competitive, driven, and coachable, with a chemistry forged away from the pitch.

Emergency contact might be a stretch, but future bridesmaids are a given. 

“We’re like yin and yang,” Hutton, 20, said. Pfeiffer, 18, said they “balance each other out” in nearly every way — hot takes and advice, competence in the kitchen, and navigating all the learning curves of adulthood. 

They became fast friends prior to joining the Kansas City Current three years ago. They first connected, at 15 and 17, the way a lot of teenagers do: through Snapchat. 

It’s Pfeiffer’s preferred mode of communication, but Hutton got tired of the back-and-forth and called her. The teenagers, in anticipation of signing their first pro contracts, ended up talking for hours. When they finally met in person at a Nike event, their friendship was immediately solidified. 

The duo made their pro debuts in the Current’s first 2024 match, and from there, their careers took off. Pfeiffer that day became the youngest goal-scorer in NWSL history. For Hutton, the match marked the start of a meteoric rise to eventually becoming the youngest player to wear the captain’s armband for the USWNT.

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Now, the two are taking on a new chapter — in their soccer journeys and young adult lives — in the Bay Area.

March was monumental for Pfeiffer. She scored the first goal in the first game of the Emma Coates era — her first in two years since tearing her ACL in July 2024.

And she finished high school. 

Pfeiffer, two-and-a-half  years into her career in the NWSL, pressed “submit” on her final essay while at the U.S. under-20 national team camp, then completed her last exam shortly after returning to Bay FC’s training grounds, with club staffers stepping in as proctors. 

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After leaving behind the traditional school experience in Saint Louis following her freshman year to turn pro, Pfeiffer signed a three-year deal with the Current at 15 through the NWSL’s Under-18 Entry Mechanism and shifted to online classes. 

 “I can’t lie; it was kind of a struggle,” Pfeiffer admitted. 

Hutton, who graduated high school a year early before signing with the Current in 2023, has nudged Pfeiffer to enroll in college courses — because “soccer doesn’t last forever.”

Now Pfeiffer is handling life on her own for the first time without her family in a new team and a new city. She’s figuring out who she is outside of the game she’s loved since she was 5 and fiercely overprotective of her pink soccer ball. All of it is made easier with the help of Hutton.

Bay FC signed Pfeiffer in January to a three-year deal, and a few weeks later, the club acquired Hutton from Kansas City in a three-team trade that included a $1.1 million transfer fee. 

“It’s cool to take another step in our lives and the journey together,” said Hutton, who signed a five-year extension with Bay FC. “It’s like taking the world head-on by ourselves and realizing that as we are chasing our dreams soccer-wise, there’s so much to the world.” 

Hutton’s journey to the Bay began in Albany, New York, where she played with a local youth club before jumping to World Class FC, an Elite Clubs National League organization, which required a weekly two-hour commute for training. By the time she reached Bethlehem Central High, she was already looking for a new challenge, between juggling junior national team camps and the early stages of college recruitment, so she joined the boys varsity team as a junior. 

Hutton graduated after her junior year with plans to enroll at North Carolina, a perennial powerhouse, but pivoted and signed with Kansas City during a gap semester. 

If the pair’s developmental paths differ in details, they converge in effect: both had to grow up faster than their peers. 

For Hutton, she’s felt a sense of independence and ownership in her career — from solo cross-country flights at 14 to learning from leaders on the national team. Pfeiffer, meanwhile, had played years up her whole life, but off the field, the Bay FC experience is different. Her family relocated to Kansas City at the start of her pro career, but now, she’s on her own in California — where she, a Midwestern girl at heart — never imagined she’d end up. 

“I think it’s the maturity part for me. I’m still growing,” she said. “I’m learning how to be myself and how to act in an environment like this. It’s taught me a lot about myself and the person I can be.” In this monumental step, she’s leaning on Hutton, her new teammates — a group of whom live in the same apartment complex and enjoy weekly dinners — and all of Bay FC’s staff. Plus, she’s got ChatGPT for those other adulting inquiries, like how to turn on a grill. 

Three months in, the Bay Area is feeling like home for both.

Over the weekend, when Hutton subbed into the USWNT’s friendly against Japan at her new home field, PayPal Park, she was met with a roar from the sellout crowd. 

“I’m just a girl from upstate New York, so now, living in California, even though my family’s not here, it still feels like I’m surrounded by people that love me and people that are always supporting, so it’s incredible,” Hutton told reporters after the game. 

Hutton sees milestones like every USWNT call-up as little boxes checked, affirmations that she’s on the right path — but those aren’t the end goal. Like she said just after landing in Northern California to join her best friend, Hutton wants to build Bay FC into a “dynasty that hopefully takes over the league.”