BATON ROUGE – Members of the LSU soccer program will make their fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in five seasons this weekend as they travel to College Station, Texas, on Friday night to battle the No. 3-seeded Texas A&M Aggies in the first round with kickoff set for 6:30 p.m. CT at Ellis Field.
The winner of Friday’s contest will advance to face either West Virginia (17-4) or Virginia Tech (12-7-1) in the second round in a potential clash in Charlottesville, Va., on Friday, Nov. 18.
Texas A&M will provide live streaming video of the first round of the NCAA Tournament on its athletics website at www.aggieathletics.com as part of the tournament homepage.
Live updates and exclusive coverage of Friday’s match between LSU and Texas A&M is also available to fans by liking LSU Soccer on Facebook and following @LSUSoccer on Twitter. Fans are also invited to join in the live in-game commentary throughout the match as part of LSU Soccer’s Facebook chat.
The Tigers (13-7-1) were rewarded with an at-large bid into the 2011 NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Tournament on the strength of the 2011 season in which they captured their fourth SEC Western Division championship in five seasons and finished in second place in the final SEC regular season standing a third time in four seasons with their 8-3 mark and 24 points in conference play.
LSU returns to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2009 campaign with their fourth NCAA at-large berth in the last five seasons following consecutive appearances from 2007-09.
LSU has enjoyed great success in the NCAA First Round in recent years as it has posted a 2-1 record with a pair of trips to the second round in 2007 and 2009 for its deepest run in the program’s history.
This actually marks the second time in program history that the Tigers have traveled to College Station on the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament as went up against the Washington Huskies in first round of the College Station Regional in their second postseason appearance in 2008.
The Tigers will face a familiar opponent on Friday night as they last faced the Aggies (15-5-2) in 2009 for the right to advance to the NCAA Sweet 16 as part of the Baton Rouge Regional.
After playing to a 1-1 draw in regulation, Texas A&M scored a 4-2 win over LSU in penalty kicks in their second-round matchup at the LSU Soccer Stadium. It remains the first and only match between the Tigers and Aggies on the soccer pitch in the history of the two programs before they kick off on Friday night.
Texas A&M has earned a No. 3 national seed in the 2011 NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Tournament on the strength of a second-place finish in the Big 12 Conference regular-season standings and capturing a Big 12 Tournament title with a win over previously-unbeaten Oklahoma State in Sunday’s final. The team owns a nine-game unbeaten streak heading into Friday’s first-round match at Ellis Field.
The sides feature star-studded lineups as Friday’s match features 11 athletes earning all-conference on the merit of their performance in 2011, including five Tigers and six Aggies.
The Tigers are led by the likes of senior First-Team All-SEC selections Taryne Boudreau on the front line and Allysha Chapman in the defensive midfield. Chapman, a three-time All-SEC selection and a two-time first-team honoree during her collegiate career, also earned a SEC Co-Defensive Player of the Year award for her effort as one of the premier defensive standouts in all of women’s college soccer.
Senior midfielder Natalie Martineau has been recognized with her first career All-SEC honor this fall as a second-team selection, while rookie defenders Alex Arlitt and Jodi Calloway have each been honored this season as members of the SEC All-Freshman Team as two of the league’s top young performers.
Aggie freshman Kelley Monogue is arguably the top freshman in the country for the 2011 season as she is not just a First-Team All-Big 12 selection, but she has also been honored this season as the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and Big 12 Rookie of the Year while scoring 18 goals and dishing out a total of nine assists for 45 points in her first season in College Station.
Joining Monogue as First-Team All-Big 12 performers for Texas A&M are senior Merritt Mathias, junior Beth West and sophomore Rachel Lenz, while freshman Meghan Streight was honored as a Second-Team All-Big 12 selection and rookie Annie Kunz joined Monogue and Streight on the All-Newcomer Team.