LUBBOCK, Texas – The LSU Soccer Team (9-8-3, 4-6-2 SEC) is set to begin their journey in the 2024 NCAA Championships in the first round against No. 23 Texas Tech (14-4-2, 8-1-2 BIG 12) on Friday, November 15 at 7 p.m. CT in John Walker Soccer Complex.
LSU was selected to the field of 64 teams who will compete for the 43rd NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship. Thirty-one conference champions qualified automatically, while the rest of the field was selected at-large by the NCAA committee.
“We’re really excited to be in the national tournament for four years running and for the matchup against Texas Tech,” said Hudson. “It’s a great accomplishment to go dancing. Texas Tech is traditionally a very strong program and they’ve had a really good year in the Big 12, so it’ll be a tough test for us. They are well organized and have a fantastic coach in Tom Stone.”
“We’ll be heading to Lubbock with a lot of confidence from the way that we’ve played in recent weeks. Our team is ready and knows how to go into a game and have to execute in 90 minutes. We learned a lot in our SEC Tournament run last week in terms of tournament play, managing plays and finding ways to win.”
The match between the Tigers and the Red Raiders will stream live on ESPN+ with Geoff Haxton on the call. The watch link and live stats can be found on lsusports.net.
The Bracket
Friday night’s match between LSU and No. 8 seed Texas Tech is one of thirty-two single-elimination first-round games that will be conducted at non-predetermined campus sites on November 15, 16 or 17. The winning team from each game will advance to the second round.
Second and third round competition will follow across eight non-predetermined campus sites. At each campus site, four teams will compete in a single-elimination second-round competition. The two winning teams will then compete against each other in a single-elimination third-round competition at the same campus site. The winning team from each of the eight third rounds advanced to the quarterfinals.
Four single-elimination quarterfinals games will be conducted on November 29 or 30 with the winners advancing to the championship final site.
This 43rd annual NCAA Women’s College Cup will be played on December 6 and 9 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, Dec. 6, followed by the second semifinal beginning at approximately 6:30 p.m. CT live on ESPNU.
The national championship match will take place at 4 p.m. CT on Monday, Dec. 9 and will also broadcast live on ESPNU.
Check the full interactive bracket of the 2024 NCAA Championships here.
NCAA Tournament History
This year’s postseason berth marks the Tigers tenth program appearance in the NCAA Tournament and fourth-straight under Hudson, the longest streak by a coach in LSU soccer program history. LSU has claimed their spot in the tournament every year since 2021.
Prior to that, the longest streak of postseason appearances came in 2007-2009 under former head coach Brian Lee.
Hudson’s first career NCAA Tournament appearance in the Purple & Gold came against Memphis in 2021, who the Tigers also played in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last year.
The Tigers defeated Lamar in Baton Rouge to advance to the second round in 2022, 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 3-8-2 in NCAA Tournament competition.
The Opponent
LSU leads the all-time series over Texas Tech with a record of 2-1. Friday’s match is only their fourth time meeting, having last faced off in 2020, when LSU came out victorious in a 1-0 win in Denton.
The Red Raiders earned the national seed after a successful regular season that featured a second-place finish in the Big 12 Conference and 14 wins (including the Big 12 Tournament). Tech also tied a program record for Big 12 wins (8) and advanced to the Semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament for the fifth time in six seasons.
Tiger Notables
LSU has scored 32 goals on the year across 12 different goal scorers. 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 time this year as Ferguson, Ceballos, Iljkic, Shannon and Amsden have all scored their first career goals at LSU.
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 258 shots on the year, with 118 of those being on target. Galligan has taken the most shots for the Tigers with 36. 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 keepers in the conference.
Kevorkian, a junior transfer from San Diego, started in the squad’s last four matches and earned two clean sheets. She totaled an impressive nine saves, a season high, in her first start against Vanderbilt and currently owns 16 saves on the year.
The Tigers finished the regular season in the top-10 in the SEC in goals (9th) and saves (6th) and averaged 1.68 goals per game compared to 1.53 from their opponents, while also averaging about 12.9 shots per game.
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