BATON ROUGE – As the LSU Soccer team prepares for its return to the SEC Tournament on Monday afternoon, three Tigers have been honored by the league’s 14 head coaches as members of the 2015 All-SEC teams as strikers Jorian Baucom and Summer Clarke and defender Alex Thomas were among those announced Sunday in the SEC’s postseason awards.
Baucom became the seventh player in program history to earn First-Team All-SEC honors and the first since Canadian World Cup star Allysha Chapman in 2011, while Clarke earned a Second-Team All-SEC selection for a second time in her career and Thomas was included on the SEC All-Freshman Team after a strong rookie season.
With their announcement, it marks the 12th-straight season since 2004 in which at least one LSU Tiger has been honored as an All-SEC performer as either a first-team, second-team or all-freshman selection.
2015 SEC Soccer Awards Announced
A sophomore from Scottsdale, Arizona, Baucom has flourished into one of the NCAA’s elite strikers in 2015 after earning SEC All-Freshman Team honors a year ago as she ranks among the nation’s top goal scorers with a career-high 15 goals in her 18 appearances for the Tigers this fall. That includes six goals in SEC play while spearheading the attack that has the Tigers back in the postseason.
Baucom’s team-leading 15 goals this season has nearly doubled her total of eight goals from her freshman season as she ranks No. 2 in the SEC and tied for No. 6 on the NCAA’s goal scoring charts. She picked up a First-Team All-SEC honor for the first time in her collegiate career to etch her name alongside Artie Brown (2004), Michelle Makasini (2007), Malorie Rutledge (2007, 2008, 2009), Chelsea Potts (2009), Taryne Boudreau (2011) and Chapman (2010, 2011) as the seventh first-team selection in the program’s history.
Congrats to @joriannicole (1st team), @sumclarke_ (2nd team) & @alexxxmarieee9 (all-freshman) on the All-SEC teams! pic.twitter.com/CUfsW9NxNi
— LSU Soccer (@LSUSoccer) November 1, 2015
Baucom just picked up her second SEC Offensive Player of the Week award on Friday following her two-goal performance that led the Tigers to a 3-2 win at Kentucky in Thursday’s regular-season finale to send the club back to the SEC Tournament as the No. 7 seed. The Tigers have drawn the 10th-seeded Wildcats in a rematch as they kick off in Monday’s first-round match at 3:30 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
LSU’s leading scorer has had three multi-goal games in 2015 while also matching her single-game best with two goals in a 4-0 shutout of Indiana and a 5-1 victory over Marquette during the non-conference season.
Baucom’s 15 goals is tied for the No. 3 spot and 32 points is tied for the No. 5 spot on LSU’s all-time single-season scoring list, while her five game-winning goals is also tied for sixth in a season at LSU. In just two years in Baton Rouge, Baucom is already ranked among the program’s all-time leading scorers as her 23 goals in 2014 and 2015 makes her the No. 9-ranked goal scorer in history.
A junior from Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, Clarke is an All-SEC performer for the second time in three years after she also picked up Second-Team All-SEC and SEC All-Freshman Team awards for the first time in her debut season in 2013. She is among the eight forwards to receive either first-team or second-team honors from the league’s head coaches despite missing the last four games in SEC play through injury.
Clarke follows Baucom as LSU’s second-leading scorer during the 2015 season with seven goals and four assists for 18 points in her 15 appearances for the Tigers this season. That includes two goals and an assist making seven starts in SEC play as she missed the last four matches of the regular season with an injury picked up at Florida back on Oct. 11.
Before her injury, Clarke was ranked among the Top 10 goal scorers in the SEC and Top 20 goal scorers in the NCAA for the 2015 season while also scoring the game-winner against both Indiana and Marquette during an unbeaten non-conference slate for the Tigers. Clarke’s impact has certainly been felt in LSU’s results this season as the Tigers are 4-1 in the five matches in which she has scored a goal.
A product of Ben Franklin High School in New Orleans, Thomas has made a seamless transition to the back line this season while establishing herself as one of the SEC’s top young defensive talents at right back.
Thomas is one of seven Tigers to start all 19 matches during the 2015 season as she has scored one goal and served up one assist for three points in the attack while also helping the squad to a 1.10 goals against average and six clean sheets on the defensive end as they head into the postseason with an 11-4-4 overall record and 5-4-2 mark against SEC competition.
Thomas signed with the Tigers as one of the top attacking talents in the South following her record-setting career at Ben Franklin High School where she was twice named the Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year with both her junior and senior seasons. She has shown the instincts of being an outstanding right back in her short time with the Tigers and a future leader on the field in Baton Rouge.
Thomas becomes the 17th Tiger all-time to be named to the SEC All-Freshman Team as the program has produced many of the league’s top rookies with at least one SEC All-Freshman selection in 11-straight seasons.
With Baucom, Clarke and Thomas each being selected to this year’s All-SEC teams, there have been 21 different LSU Tigers accounting for 40 All-SEC selections in 11 seasons under the direction of head coach Brian Lee, which includes all first-team, second-team and all-freshman selections dating back to the 2005 season.
2015 SEC Women’s Soccer Postseason Awards
SEC Coach of the Year
Bryan Blitz, Missouri
SEC Offensive Player of the Year
Savannah Jordan, Florida
SEC Defensive Player of the Year
Christen Westphal, Florida
SEC Freshman of the Year
CeCe Kizer, Ole Miss
SEC Co-Scholar-Athletes of the Year
Abby Lutzenkirchen, Alabama
Casie Ramsier, Auburn
First-Team All-SEC
Forward: Jorian Baucom, LSU
Forward: Addie Forbus, Ole Miss
Forward: Savannah Jordan, Florida
Forward: Savannah McCaskill, South Carolina
Midfielder: Mikaela Harvey, Texas A&M
Midfielder: CeCe Kizer, Ole Miss
Midfielder: Courtney Raetzman, Kentucky
Midfielder: Casie Ramsier, Auburn
Defender: Claire Falknor, Florida
Defender: Kala Faulkner, Auburn
Defender: Candace Johnson, Missouri
Defender: Christen Westphal, Florida
Goalkeeper: Julie Eckel, Tennessee
Second-Team All-SEC
Forward: Simone Charley, Vanderbilt
Forward: Summer Clarke, LSU
Forward: Raina Johnson, South Carolina
Forward: Haley Pounds, Texas A&M
Midfielder: Celia Jiminez Delgado, Alabama
Midfielder: Melanie Donaldson, Missouri
Midfielder: Meggie Dougherty Howard, Florida
Midfielder: Reagan Russell, Missouri
Defender: Jessica Hiskey, Ole Miss
Defender: Abby Lutzenkirchen, Alabama
Defender: Karlie Mueller, Texas A&M
Defender: Caroline Waters, Georgia
Goalkeeper: Sarah LeBeau, Auburn
All-Freshman Team
Emily Bates, Texas A&M
Katie Cousins, Tennessee
Carly Hoke, Arkansas
CeCe Kizer, Ole Miss
Sarah LeBeau, Auburn
Mayra Pelayo, Florida
Sydney Shultis, Georgia
Alex Thomas, LSU
Taylor Troutman, Auburn
Ally Watt, Texas A&M
Emma Welch, Alabama