BATON ROUGE – LSU Soccer is ranked among the nation’s top-20 women’s college soccer programs in the NCAA’s Ratings Percentage Index for a third-straight week after the Tigers came in at No. 19 nationally during the 2017 season with the release of the latest RPI rankings on Monday morning.
The Tigers remain among the five highest-ranked Southeastern Conference teams in this week’s RPI after checking in at No. 14 in the initial ranking on Sept. 18 before climbing to No. 11 a week ago.
The SEC has certainly flexed its muscle as one of the most powerful conferences in college soccer through Sunday’s matches as the league boasts the RPI’s No. 1-ranked squad in South Carolina along with eight top-25 teams and 13 of its 14 programs ranking among the Top 90. LSU also joins No. 10 Tennessee, No. 15 Florida and No. 16 Texas A&M in the Top 20 of this week’s NCAA RPI.
NCAA Ratings Percentage Index Week No. 3
“The SEC can certainly make a case of being the top conference in the country in our sport this season with the way our teams have performed top-to-bottom,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “With the commitment in this league to soccer over the past several years, suddenly we blink and we’ve become like SEC softball. It’s exciting, and the best is still to come.”
LSU remains the only team to hand RPI No. 11 Cincinnati a defeat this season as the Bearcats are currently joint top of the American Athletic Conference with a 9-1-2 overall record and unbeaten 3-0-1 mark in AAC play. No. 5-ranked Central Florida, the team that joins Cincinnati at the top of the AAC standings, will be in Baton Rouge on Sunday, Oct. 15, to close out LSU’s outstanding non-conference slate for this season.
The Tigers’ NCAA Tournament resume is also bolstered by two draws against RPI Top 40 teams with an away draw at No. 24 Alabama on Sept. 21 followed by a home draw with No. 39 Mississippi State on Sept. 25.
They are back in action on Thursday night as they play host to the visiting Georgia Bulldogs with kickoff set for 6 p.m. CT on the SEC Network+. LSU follows with a trip to Oxford, Mississippi, on Sunday to square off with the Ole Miss Rebels, the No. 25-ranked team in this week’s RPI, at 2 p.m. CT at the Ole Miss Soccer Stadium.
NCAA’s Women’s Soccer RPI Top 25 (as of Oct. 2)
1. South Carolina
2. Stanford
3. North Carolina
4. Duke
5. Central Florida
6. Princeton
7. West Virginia
8. Texas
9. UCLA
10. Tennessee
11. Cincinnati
12. Rutgers
13. Notre Dame
14. Florida State
15. Florida
16. Texas A&M
17. Wake Forest
18. Pepperdine
19. LSU
20. Penn State
21. Ohio State
22. Michigan
23. Auburn
24. Alabama
25. Ole Miss