BATON ROUGE – With just eight days until the start of the 2013 regular season, the LSU Soccer team will play host to in-state rivals Nicholls State on Friday night at the LSU Soccer Stadium as the preseason exhibition match is set to kick off at 7 p.m. CT. Admission is free for each of LSU’s 10 home matches played during the 2013 season.
The Tigers are now 10 days into their preseason training camp as they prepare for their 2013 season opener on Friday, Aug. 23, at 7 p.m. as they play host to Louisiana Tech in Baton Rouge.
Head coach Brian Lee and his staff have put the squad through 11 training sessions during preseason camp with two-a-day practices held on Wednesday and Thursday of last week and both Sunday and Monday of this week, as well as single sessions on Friday of last week and Tuesday and Thursday this week ahead of Friday’s exhibition match.
“It’s important in our preparation for the start of the season that we have an opportunity to compete with another team while being limited to split-squad work to this point in camp,” Lee said. “I’m very excited to see just how far we’ve come as a team and if our players can translate what we’ve worked on in training over these past 10 days or so to 90 minutes in an actual game.
“We’ve all seen great chemistry in the team to this point, and now we just need to carry that over to a game and play with great team chemistry on the field starting tomorrow night in the exhibition.”
The Tigers will open the 2013 regular season with a four-game homestand that kicks off against Louisiana Tech next Friday. They will then follow by playing host to Louisiana-Monroe on Tuesday, Aug. 27, TCU on Friday, Aug. 30, and No. 6-ranked BYU on Monday, Sept. 2, as each match will kick off at 7 p.m. CT at the LSU Soccer Stadium.
LSU’s home match against BYU is set for a live television broadcast on Cox Sports Television as the Cougars feature a top-10 team again this season. After finishing off the 2012 season with a 20-2-2 overall record and its run to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament, BYU is ranked No. 6 nationally by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in its preseason Top 25 poll released earlier this week.