LSU Soccer Earns NCAA Berth For Third-Straight Year; Set To Face No. 6 Seed Memphis in First Round
BATON ROUGE – The LSU Soccer team earned their third-straight NCAA berth as the Tigers (8-7-4) are set to compete against No. 6 seeded Memphis (18-1-0) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday, November 11 at 7 p.m. CT.
“I am really excited and proud of the team for the resilience they’ve shown in the last few weeks. It was a little bit of a nerve wracking week as we waited to find out our fate, but we felt like we had a good shot with the big wins we had on our resume this year and seven results against top-50 opponents,” head coach Sian Hudson said.
“There’s a lot of excitement in the group right now with the opportunity to go to Memphis and put on a performance that is worthy of the LSU Tigers on their best day.”
31 conferences were granted automatic bids for the 2023 championship, while the remaining 33 teams were selected at-large to make up the field of 64 teams. LSU begins their journey to the Women’s College Cup in the Fayetteville Regional, as No. 2 Arkansas earned the highest seed in their grouping along with No. 3 seed Notre Dame, No. 6 seed Memphis, and No. 7 seed Pittsburgh.
The competition between LSU and No. 6 Memphis will be the first since 2021. The Memphis Tigers were recently crowned ACC Conference Champions to earn an automatic bid to the tournament.
The winner of the match between LSU and No. 6 Memphis will advance to the second round and face the winner of No. 3 Notre Dame and Valparaiso on Friday, November 17.
Competition kicks off this weekend with the first round of matches beginning on Friday, November 10 through Sunday, November 12. Second and third rounds of play will continue the following weekend on Friday, November 17 and Sunday, November 19 with quarterfinals taking place on November 24 or 25.
This year marks the 42nd annual NCAA Women’s College Cup, to be played on December 1 and 4 at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina. The first national semifinal will be played and broadcast live on ESPNU at 5 p.m. CT on Friday, December 1, followed by the second semifinal beginning at approximately 7:30 p.m. CT live on ESPNU.
The national championship match will take place on Monday, December 5 at 5 p.m. CT on ESPNU.
This will be the Tigers ninth program appearance in the NCAA Tournament and third-straight under head coach Sian Hudson, marking only the second time in school history that the program has made an appearance in the tournament in as many straight years. The last time the program made three-straight appearances in the NCAA Tournament was from 2007-2009.
Hudson’s first career NCAA Tournament appearance in the Purple & Gold came against Memphis in 2021, as both of the Tigers again go head-to-head on the national stage.
“We will be reflecting on a lot of things that we learned from Memphis as a team last time we faced them in 2021. Brooks (Monaghan) has done a great job there, only losing once this year, so it’s going to be a really difficult game, but we’ll be ready for it,” said Hudson.
This will be the ninth time the two programs meet, as the all-time series record between LSU and Memphis is tied 4-4. The last time the two teams met was in 2021, when LSU fell to Memphis in the first round in 2021 by a score of 3-0
Last year, the Tigers defeated Lamar in Baton Rouge to advance to the second round, where they fell against Florida State. The run matched the longest in program history as Hudson and the Tigers will look to go even further this year. LSU owns an all-time record of 3-7-2 in NCAA Tournament competition.
LSU has earned two wins against ranked opponents this season, including a victory over the newly crowned SEC Champions Georgia. The Tigers took down No. 9 Texas for the program’s first Top-10 win on the road in school history as well as No. 22 Georgia in a 3-2 thriller for their second top-25 win of the year.
The Tigers also battled to a draw against No. 9 Arkansas to earn a point in conference play against the Razorbacks. The Tigers own an RPI of 52 following the conclusion of conference tournaments.
Stay up to date with all things LSU Soccer and their journey to the Women’s College Cup by following us our team’s social media channels @LSUsoccer on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook.