Mia Justus

Mia Taylin Justus (born September 3, 2002) is an American soccer player who plays as a goalkeeper. She played college soccer for the Florida State Seminoles and the Texas Longhorns. She played a backup role for Florida State's 2021 national championship team before transferring and leading Texas to both Big 12 and SEC titles. She represented the United States at the youth international level.

Early life and college career

Justus was raised in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, Ohio, one of six children born to Lauren and Leon Justus. She is a cousin of longtime United States men's national team goalkeeper Tim Howard. She attended IMG Academy and first committed to Rutgers before switching to Florida State.

Justus spent two years as the backup to Cristina Roque for the Florida State Seminoles. She won seven of her eight starts in the 2021 season, being named to the Atlantic Coast Conference all-freshman team. She was an unused substitute as Florida State won the ACC and national championships with Roque in goal. She won six of her seven starts as a sophomore in 2022, helping the team win the ACC regular-season title. Roque played as the Seminoles won another ACC tournament and reached the NCAA semifinals. After the season, she transferred to the Texas Longhorns to get more playing time.

Justus started every game for the Longhorns in her junior season in 2023, being named second-team All-Big 12 with 9 shutouts in 26 games. She led the team to the Big 12 championship as the tournament's most valuable player. Texas reached the third round of the NCAA tournament, where they fell to Florida State. With the program's move to the Southeastern Conference in 2024, Justus kept a program-record 12 clean sheets and was named to the All-SEC third team. She led the Longhorns to the SEC championship as the tournament's most valuable player, recording a career-high 14 saves in a 2–1 win against Arkansas in the semifinals.

International career

Justus trained with the United States youth national team beginning at the under-14 level in 2015. She traveled for international friendlies with the under-16 team in 2017 and 2018, the under-17 team in 2018, the under-18 team in 2019 and 2020, and the under-19 team in 2018 and 2020. She started for the under-20 team through the quarterfinals of the 2022 CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship, a tournament the United States won. She started two games at the 2022 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, but the team did not make it out of the group stage. She played friendlies for the under-23 team against NWSL clubs in the 2023 preseason.