PENSACOLA, Fl. – No. 11 seed LSU Soccer (8-7-3, 3-5-2 SEC) is set to kick off competition in the 2024 SEC Tournament against No. 6 seed Auburn (12-2-4, 4-2-4 SEC) on Sunday, November 3 at 2 p.m. CT at the Ashton Brosnaham Soccer Complex.
LSU and Auburn will meet for the second time this season as both will battle to advance to the next round. This year marks the Tigers 20th program appearance in the SEC Tournament and fifth consecutive appearance under head coach Sian Hudson.
“We’re excited to be back at the beach and for the opportunity to redeem ourselves against Auburn. In the last few games, the team has shown a lot of grit and resilience, and our mindset is just to stay focused on what we’ve been doing.”
“The most important thing for us tomorrow will be to manage the game early. Auburn has an experienced team and I have a lot of respect for Karen (Hoppa). We have to defend as a unit and defend the box well.”
The match on Sunday is set to kick off at 2 p.m. CT on SEC Network with Alex Pearlman and Marion Crowder on the call. The winner of the match will advance to quarterfinals on Tuesday, November 5 and take on No. 3 Texas at 2 p.m. CT.
All tournament matches will be aired on SEC Network. The bracket with match dates and times can be found here. The watch link and live stats link can be found here.
The 2024 SEC Soccer Tournament will run from November 3 – November 10 at the Ashton Brosnaham Soccer Complex in Pensacola, Florida. The championship match is slated for Sunday, November 10 at 1:30 p.m. CT.
Tournament History
This year marks the Tigers 20th program appearance in the SEC Tournament. LSU owns a record of 11-12-9 as they look to make a run in this year’s tournament. Seven of those appearances have been in the semifinals and two in the finals, with one conference championship title under their belt in 2018.
The LSU Tigers have secured one SEC Championship title in program history in 2018. This year marks head coach Sian Hudson’s fifth consecutive appearance in the conference tournament.
LSU’s year-by-year appearances: 1995, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.
The Opponent
LSU and Auburn will face off in the first round of the 2024 SEC Tournament this Sunday, marking the team’s second meeting this season. The Tigers fell in a regular season match against the War Eagles earlier this year by a score of 4-0. Auburn owns the overall series 22-8-5.
Auburn has a record of 12-2-4 on the year and are 4-2-4 in conference play with 16 points. They currently rank No. 24 by United Soccer Coaches and No. 13 by Top Drawer Soccer.
They earned the six seed heading into the SEC Tournament and own an all-time tournament record of 16-25-5. Auburn has earned the six seed in the SEC Tournament eight times prior to the 2024 season.
The War Eagles have scored 48 goals on the year with 137 shots on goal, 32 saves and 12 shutouts. They rank in the top 10 in the conference in shots (6th), goals (2nd), assists (3rd), and shutouts (2nd).
A win on Sunday would be the Tigers’ fourth SEC Tournament win over the last four appearances and extend Auburn’s undefeated streak to 17-straight matches over LSU.
Tiger Notables
LSU kicks off tournament play on Sunday as they will be searching for the program’s second SEC Championship.
The top 12 programs in the league made the conference tournament, which is set to start on November 3rd with first round competition in Pensacola and finish the following Sunday on November 11.
LSU has scored 30 goals on the year across 12 different goal scorers through the regular season. Ida Hermannsdóttir, Mollie Baker, Jazmin Ferguson, Angelina Thoreson, Ava Galligan, Andrea Iljkic, Amy Smith, Kelsey Major, Sage Glover, Gabbi Ceballos, Danielle Shannon and Ava Amsden have all found the back of the net for the Tigers this year.
Five players earned their spot on the scoresheet for the first team as Ferguson, Ceballos, Iljkic, Shannon and Amsden have all scored their first career goals at LSU this season.
Hermannsdottir leads the team with eight goals on the year, while Ava Galligan follows with five. The Tigers have recorded 16 assists across nine different players so far this year, with junior Sydney Cheesman leading the way. The UNC transfer has been pivotal in set pieces for LSU, recording a team high four assists on the year.
Overall, LSU has taken 242 shots on the year, with 112 of those being on target. Galligan has taken the most shots for the Tigers with 35. Hermannsdottir has the most shots on target with 19. Baker, Glover, Shannon, Smith, Amsden, Iljkic, Ceballos and Thoreson have also been pivotal on the attack, each with 10 or more shots on the year.
Audur Scheving and Sophine Kevorkian have been huge in between the posts for the Tigers this season. Scheving has recorded 54 saves and three shutouts for the Tigers in her first year and ranks amongst the top-10 players in the conference currently in shutouts (9th) and saves (6th).
Kevorkian, a junior transfer from San Diego, started in the squad’s last two regular season matches and earned two clean sheets. She totaled an impressive nine saves, a season high, in her first start against Vanderbilt.
LSU currently sits 11th in the overall SEC standings with 11 points. Mississippi State won the regular season championship and leads the conference with 30 points.
The Tigers rank in the top-10 in the SEC in goals (9th) and saves (5th) and average 1.67 goals per game compared to 1.56 from their opponents, while also averaging about 13.4 shots per game.
Last Time On The Pitch
In a must-win game to keep postseason hopes alive, LSU concluded their regular season with a 1-0 win at Missouri last Sunday in Columbia thanks to the game-winning goal from forward Ida Hermannsdottir.
With both teams looking to clinch a spot in the SEC Tournament, LSU found a way to get the win to finish in the top 12 in the conference and secure their spot in the SEC Tournament.
The match opened with a cagey first half that saw the chances limited on both ends. LSU Goalkeeper Sophine Kevorkian stopped Missouri’s first shot on target in the 18th minute and picked up another save just before halftime in the 44th to keep the scoreline even.
For LSU, their best chance of the half came from forward Mollie Baker, who had a banger in the 35th minute from inside the box that hit the crossbar and fell straight down, just close enough to the goal line to call for VAR. After review, the shot was deemed not a goal after the entirety of the ball did not cross the goal line and the Tigers continued to fight to get on board.
The second half picked up right where the first left off as neither team could break down the other in the first 20 minutes. Kevorkian caught her third save of the day in the 57th minute while Phillips denied forward Amy Smith’s effort in the 64th minute.
The breakthrough for LSU came in the 67th minute. Kevorkian launched a ball from outside her box to midfield, which was touched down by forward Andrea Iljkic into the path of Smith. Smith played a through ball to a bursting Hermansdottir, who broke into the box and smacked the ball past the goalkeeper and into the top of the net to give LSU a 1-0 lead. The crucial goal was the Icelandic international’s eighth of the season, and her first since her since the match against Oklahoma on September 26.
LSU had 22 minutes to hold the lead and keep their postseason hopes alive. The visiting team nearly found a second goal in the 80th minute as defender Jazmin Ferguson’s header in the box required an acrobat leap from Phillips to parry away and keep Missouri within a goal.
Kevorkian finished the match with five saves and secured her second consecutive clean sheet in just her second start at LSU. The San Diego, California native stepped in between the sticks for the final two games of the season after Audur Scheving’s international call up for Iceland. Despite not playing prior to Thursday, Kevorkian helped the Tigers grab four points in SEC play in the final weekend of the season and contributed to her team securing a postseason berth.
Defenders Sydney Cheesman and Jazmin Ferguson and midfielder Gabbi Ceballos were also huge in the Tigers win in Columbia, added Hudson.
The 2024 Roster
This year’s team is a mix of youth and experience. The roster is made up of 29 players, with one graduate student, two seniors, seven juniors, nine sophomores and 10 freshmen.
Mollie Baker and Jaden Humbyrd will lead the squad as captains this year, while ECU transfer Jazmin Ferguson will serve as the vice captain.
LSU has welcomed four new transfers for this upcoming season in Ferguson, Cheesman, Sophine Kevorkian (USD) and Gabbi Ceballos (TCU).
The veteran seniors include Baker, Humbyrd and Tori Gillis, who are all in their final season with the Tigers this year.
Kevorkian, Ferguson, Hermannsdottir, Cheesman, Jocelyn Ollivierre, Angelina Thoreson and Sage Glover make up the junior class.
Thoreson returned to the pitch this year after sitting out of the 2023 season due to injury.
The sophomores on the squad are Ceballos, Danielle Shannon, Kelsey Major, Audur Scheving, Caley Swierenga, Andrea Iljkic, Ava Galligan, Brielyn Knowles and Alyson Campbell.
The freshmen class includes Riley MacDonald, Amy Smith, Annaleigh Bruser, Katelyn Holt, Emerson DeLuca, Ava Amsden, Aurora Gaines, Senai Rogers, Sarah Stadler and Natalie Dvorakova.
The addition of Scheving to the squad brings LSU’s total to four internationals on the roster. She is the second player to become a Tiger from Reykjavik, Iceland, along with Hermannsdottir. Other countries represented on the squad are Sweden and Czechia.
The full 2024 LSU Soccer Roster can be found here.
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