BATON ROUGE – After emerging as one of the top young right backs in college soccer during a decorated freshman season, LSU rookie Alex Thomas has been called up by head coach Michelle French to the Under-20 U.S. Women’s National Team for a week-long training camp running through Jan. 10 at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center in Carson, California.
The U.S. U-20s begin their preparations for the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup next fall following a successful qualifying campaign that yielded the CONCACAF title back in early December.
Thomas is among nine defenders that have been called into camp by French, including seven college stars and two high schoolers. She has joined fellow collegians Julia Ashley of North Carolina, Alana Cook of Stanford, Maddie Elliston and Kaleigh Riehl of Penn State, Shannon Horgan of Clemson, Natalie Jacobs of Notre Dame at U.S. Soccer’s National Training Center.
A New Orleans native and product of Ben Franklin High School, Thomas is among 26 players in all taking part in the week-long U-20 USWNT camp as the event overlaps the full U.S. Women’s National Team camp.
After signing with LSU as one of the top striker recruits in the South during her prep career at Ben Franklin High School, Thomas transitioned to the back line during preseason training and started all 23 games for LSU as the team’s right back during a heralded freshman season in 2015. Her performance proved instrumental in the Tigers making their return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011 and the fifth time in team history while scoring two goals and dishing out one assist for five points on the offensive end of the field.
There were not many more important goals scored for the Tigers this season than Thomas’ opener in the 10th minute in a 2-1 win over No. 2 seed and SEC runner-up Missouri in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals which sent the team into the semifinal round for the sixth time and sealed their at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament.
Thomas was certainly rewarded for her performance throughout her rookie season in Baton Rouge as she was voted a member of the SEC’s All-Freshman Team by the league’s head coaches and ranked as the No. 59-ranked freshman in all of college soccer in TopDrawerSoccer.com’s final ranking of the NCAA’s Top 100 Freshman released following the end of the NCAA Tournament in December.