Wingate was born in Medford, Massachusetts, the second of four children of Carol and Steven Wingate.[4][5] She grew up in nearby Wilmington.[5] She started playing soccer at age four but also played other sports such as softball, basketball, and ice hockey.[6][7] She attended Wilmington High School, where she played one season of ice hockey as a forward, leading the team with about 20 goals.[4][7]
During her first year of high school in 2014–15, Wingate played club soccer for FC Stars of the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL), winning the Northeast regional conference.[8] After recovering from a broken leg, she joined her high school soccer team in her sophomore year.[4][9] She scored 12 goals in about ten games as a sophomore; as a junior, she scored 17 goals and had five assists in 13 games.[4][7] Both years, the Wilmington Wildcats went undefeated in the regular season, winning league titles, but made early exits from the 2015 and 2016 state tournaments.[4][10] Wingate, known for her quickness from a young age,[8][7] was twice named the Middlesex League Player of the Year.[11]
Wingate suffered a knee injury from a collision with an opposing goalkeeper, while playing for her club team in May 2017, that required surgery and sidelined her for more than a year (including all of her senior high school season), up until two weeks before her first college game.[12][13][14]
College career
Wingate verbally committed to the University of Notre Dame as a high school sophomore in September 2015 and signed a letter of intent in February 2018.[9][14] In her first three seasons, she played in all of Notre Dame's 40 games and scored five goals.[10] She "upped her game" in her fourth year in 2021, recording seven goals and five assists in 22 starts.[10] She led the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) with a shot accuracy of 0.640 and was named to the All-ACC third team.[6][15] She scored twice in the 2021 NCAA tournament, tying the game in their second-round win over Purdue and adding another in their third-round loss to Arkansas.[3][10]
Wingate was "much more of a complete player" by her fifth season, improving her finishing and movement.[10][16] In 2022, she led Notre Dame in shots and was second in goals (14) and assists (5) in 23 games.[10] On September 1, she scored a hat trick against Wisconsin, with three goals all in the second half, and was named ACC Player of the Week.[17][18] She received those honors again the week of October 11 after scoring twice and assisting twice over two wins against NC State and Florida State.[19] She was named first-team All-ACC and third-team All-American.[10] She scored three goals in the 2022 NCAA tournament to help Notre Dame reach the Elite Eight before losing to eventual finalists North Carolina.[6][10]
Club career
The North Carolina Courage had multiple first-round picks in the 2023 NWSL Draft; Wingate said she expected to her name to be called in one of their later first-round spots, but at sixth overall, she was the team's first selection.[11][20] She was signed to a three-year contract.[21] Wingate debuted for the Courage on April 1, 2023, as a substitute in the season opener versus the Kansas City Current.[22] She scored her first professional goal in a Challenge Cup match on June 14, making it 2–1 in the 92nd minute to defeat the Washington Spirit.[23]
In her first appearance of the 2024 season, Wingate came on at halftime and scored the third goal in a 3–1 win against Racing Louisville FC on July 7.[24]
International career
Wingate first trained with the United States national under-16 team in February 2015.[8] In May 2016, she played three games for the under-16 team and scored two goals in the first women's edition of the Tournament of Nations (Torneo delle Nazioni) in Gradisca d'Isonzo, Italy.[25][26] In September 2016, she played three games in an under-16 tournament in the Netherlands.[4][25] She played for the national under-18 team on a three-game tour of England in February 2017.[27]