BATON ROUGE – In the wake of an outstanding freshman season in which she emerged as one of the top young strikers in the college game, LSU’s rising sophomore Jorian Baucom has been called into action by the U.S. Under-19 Women’s National Team for a week-long training camp at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center in Carson, California.
Baucom is among 24 U-19 standouts nationwide who will take part in the camp beginning Saturday and being held April 11-18 in conjunction with a U.S. U-20 Women’s National Team camp.
According to the official website for U.S. Soccer at http://ussoccer.com, this will be U.S. Soccer’s first training camp for the U.S. U-19 Women’s National Team since 2004 as the program moved to the U-20 setup as FIFA changed its world championship for the age group from the U-19 competition in 2002 and 2004 to the U-20 Women’s World Cup held five times in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014.
U.S. Soccer’s website states that the reinstitution of the U-19 Women’s National Team is part of its overall increase in programming for youth women’s and girl’s national teams in the United States, which now includes Women’s National Team player pools at the U-14, U-15, U-16, U-17, U-18, U-19, U-20 and U-23 levels.
Baucom is now part of the U.S. U-19 Women’s National Team player pool that is eligible for the team that will attempt to qualify for the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup that will be held in Papua New Guinea. She’s one of 10 collegiate standouts among the 24 players invited to train with the team in Carson, California, over the next week as the group also includes 14 players still competing at the youth club level.
A native of Scottsdale, Arizona, and product of Pinnacle High School, Baucom makes her return to the U.S. Women’s National Team setup after taking part in national training camps with the U-15, U-16 and U-18 during her youth career before her arrival in Baton Rouge. She signed with the Tigers as a consensus five-star recruit and one of the top strikers nationally in the Class of 2014.
One of the top young strikers in all of college soccer, Baucom was recognized among the SEC’s top players in her debut season as a member of the SEC All-Freshman Team as selected by the league’s head coaches.
She was also honored as the SEC Freshman of the Year and a Second-Team All-SEC performer by the online publication College Sports Madness after the 2014 regular season. She was also chosen as the No. 11-ranked freshman nationally by TopDrawerSoccer.com in its list of the Top 100 freshmen across the country for the 2014 season.
Baucom wrapped up her rookie season as LSU’s leading goal scorer with eight goals while also dishing out four assists for a team-best 20 points in 2014. She has carried that form into the 2015 spring season in which she has scored a team-leading three goals while helping the Tigers post an unbeaten 3-0-1 mark in four matches with their spring finale coming up at defending national champion Florida State on Saturday night.