BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s soccer team will report to campus on Monday in preparation for one of the most highly anticipated seasons in the program’s eight-year history.
The Tigers return seven starters and 17 letterwinners from last season’s squad which went 12-5-3 overall and made the Southeastern Conference Tournament, where they knocked of No. 1 seed Auburn, becoming the first eighth-seeded team to ever beat a top seed in SEC Tournament action.
LSU will begin the season versus Coastal Carolina on Aug. 29 in Baton Rouge at 7 p.m. The team will begin practice this Wednesday and will have between 30-40 practices before their first game. The Tigers will play their first five games of the season at home before embarking on a six-game road trip.
“We will meet with the entire team today and start practice on Wednesday,” said LSU head coach George Fotopoulos. “We will go three-a-days for about four days and then we will give them a day off and then probably drop down to two-a-days and then get them on a regular training pattern.”
“We will get between 30-40 practices with them before we open up against Coastal Carolina,” said Fotopoulos. “It seems like a whole lot but it really is not when you are trying to prepare for a whole season.”
Fotopoulos and his staff welcome perhaps the Tigers’ best recruiting class in the program’s history this season. LSU signed 10 players in the offseason including top players from states such as Florida, Indiana, and Colorado as well as several standout players from Baton Rouge. Nine of the players signed are true freshmen along with one sophomore, Kate Ripple, a Baton Rouge native who transferred from Texas A&M.
“We have a very young team but overall I am looking forward to seeing the freshmen that we have recruited compete at this level because we obviously feel very good about the class and are anxious to see how they do once they get into camp,” Fotopoulos said.
The Tigers will play 20 games during the regular season, with 10 games each at home and away. LSU will play nine conference matches and 11 matches against non-conference opponents. The 2003 SEC Tournament will feature the top eight teams in the conference and will be held in Orange Beach, Ala. Nov. 6-9.
LSU will report today at 10 a.m. at the LSU Soccer Complex for their first team meeting and will then have a compliance meeting at 3 p.m. at the LSU Athletic Administration Building. Physicals and additional meetings will be held Tuesday before the team hits the field for the first time on Wednesday for practice. The first intrasquad game will be held on Wednesday at 8 p.m. and will feature two 20 minute halves. The team will have two other intrasquad games on Aug. 22 and Aug. 24 which will each feature 35 minute halves.
The season-opening match versus Coastal Carolina on Aug. 29 will feature the “LSU Kickoff Tailgate Party”. There will be a pre-game tailgate party outside the LSU Soccer Complex as well as $1 tickets for groups that present football RV parking passes or individuals that present a 2003 LSU football ticket.