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BATON ROUGE – The LSU Soccer Team (7-7-2, 2-5-1 SEC) will welcome the Vanderbilt Commodores (8-2-5, 3-2-3 SEC) for their regular season home finale inside the LSU Soccer Stadium and senior night on Thursday, October 24 at 6 p.m. CT.
“We always have memorable performances on senior night, so we just want to send our seniors out the right way and there’s no better way to do that than tomorrow night,” said head coach Sian Hudson. “It will be a really critical game. I have huge respect for Darren (Ambrose) and his team. It’s definitely going to be a great matchup.”
Thursday’s match will be the Tiger’s first match on TV, as the competition between the Tigers and the Commodores will be aired on SEC Network with Mike Watts and Jill Loyden on the call. The watch link and live stats link can be found here.
Promotions
This year’s seniors of Mollie Baker, Jaden Humbyrd and Tori Gillis will be recognized prior to the start of the match on Thursday. It is also the pups at the pitch match, as fans are welcome to bring their dogs and dress up in Halloween costumes for costume contests that will take place at halftime.
The first 400 fans to arrive will also receive a free LSU Soccer scarf.
The Opponent
LSU owns a 8-13-3 series record with Vanderbilt. LSU defeated Vanderbilt the last time they faced off in 2022 by a score of 2-1 in Nashville, while Vanderbilt came out victorious the last time they were in Baton Rouge by a final score of 2-0 in 2020.
The Tigers have only defeated the Commodores two times on their home turf as they look to secure three points on Thursday night. LSU in their last five meetings against Vandy in Baton Rouge:
Vanderbilt is 8-2-5 on the year and 3-2-3 in conference play, having last defeated Florida 2-0 on the road. The Commodores have won their last three matches.
Vanderbilt has 33 goals on the year with 251 shots taken and 27 assists. They’ve recorded eight shutouts this year through 15 matches and have only allowed nine goals this season.
The Commodores share the sixth spot in the SEC rankings with 12 points, alongside Georgia. They also rank amongst the top-five teams in the conference in goals (5th) and goals allowed (3rd).
Rachel Deresky and Watts lead the Commodores with 15 points apiece off five goals, five assists and seven goals one assist, respectively.
Tiger Notables
LSU will look to get back in the win column on Thursday night in their home finale. The Tigers earned a point in a battle against the Aggies in their last match, but haven’t taken all three points since their win over Oklahoma on Sept. 26.
The Tigers came out hot on the attacking front through non-conference play, having marked wins over South Alabama (3-0), UMass Lowell (W, 3-0), Old Dominion (2-1), UL-Lafayette (3-1), San Francisco (4-1), Ole Miss (1-0) and Oklahoma (3-1) and a draw against Utah (1-1) .
LSU has scored 29 goals on the year. 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 found themselves on the scoresheet.
On that same note, LSU has seen 12 different goal scorers through the regular season so far, with five players scoring the firsts of their career. Ferguson, Ceballos, Iljkic, Shannon and Amsden have all scored their first career goals at LSU this season. Hermannsdottir leads the team with seven 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 224 shots on the year, with 105 of those being on target. Galligan has taken the most shots for the Tigers with 32. Hermannsdottir has the most shots on target with 18. Baker, Glover, Shannon, Smith, Amsden, Iljkic, Ceballos and Thoreson have also been pivotal in attacking and have all tallied 10 or more shots on the year.
Audur Scheving, the sophomore from Iceland, has been pivotal in between the posts for the Tigers. She has recorded 54 saves and three shutouts for the Tigers in her first year. Scheving ranks amongst the top-10 players in the conference currently in shutouts (8th) and saves (5th).
LSU currently sits 13th in the overall SEC standings with seven points as these final two matches of the regular season are crucial. Mississippi State and Arkansas share the top spot with 21 points each. The Tigers rank in the top-10 in the SEC in goals (9th) and saves (7th).
The Tigers average 1.81 goals per game compared to 1.75 from their opponents, while also averaging about 14 shots per game.
Scheving and Shannon are the only two players to start in every match for LSU this year.
Last Time On The Pitch
The Tigers brought home a point after battling Texas A&M to a 2-2 draw last Friday night at Ellis Field.
The conference matchup opened with a cagey first half as neither team could create quality chances. The host Aggies created nine shots in the first 45 minutes, but none that truly tested the LSU defense. LSU goalkeeper Audur Scheving registered five saves, stopping shots in the 15th, 30th, 31st, 35th and 40th minutes to keep the Aggies at bay.
The second half was a fiery contest as both teams came out of the locker room hunting for a goal. The hosts opened the scoring in the 54th minute. Grace Ivey played a long through ball that found McDonald, who broke into the box and slotted a right footed ground shot that skipped past Scheving and into the bottom corner. Only 94 seconds later, a handball was called in the Texas A&M box after forward Sage Glover ripped a strong shot that was blocked by an Aggie defender.
Following a VAR review, the referee pointed to the penalty spot to confirm the handball offense. Cheesman stepped up to the penalty spot and sent the goalkeeper the wrong way as her shot slotted easily into the right corner. The goal marked the first for Cheesman in her collegiate career.
LSU took its first lead of the night in the 64th minute. A Texas A&M defender cleared a cross sent into the box, but Galligan was able to pounce on the weak clearance and gain possession. The sophomore took a touch then sent a strong right-footed effort into the left corner from eight yards out to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead on the night. The goal was Galligan’s fifth this season and her second in SEC play.
The tying goal came in the 81st minute. Becerra lined up her shot on the left, 24 yards from outside the box and sent a curling effort over the wall and past the outstretched Scheving into the top left corner to tie the match at 2-2 on the night. Neither team could find a winner in the final nine minutes of the match and the full time whistle blew with the score at 2-2.
The Aggies outshot LSU 24-6, with the shot on goal count coming in at 9-3 in favor of Texas A&M. LSU’s Scheving finished with seven saves, a single-game season high for the Icelandic goalkeeper that saw her tally increase to 54 on the year.
Preseason Watchlist
Five Tigers on the LSU Soccer squad were named to the 2024 SEC Soccer Preseason Watchlist. A total of 88 student-athletes were named to this year’s watchlist, as Mollie Baker, Jazmin Ferguson, Ida Hermannsdóttir, Ava Galligan and Sydney Cheesman are the Tigers to keep an eye on this year.
Baker, Hermannsdottir and Galligan all return to LSU this year, while Ferguson and Cheesman transferred to the team this spring and enter their first season in the Purple and Gold.
A captain and leader on this year’s LSU squad, Baker enters her final season with the Tigers in 2024. The Gilbert, Arizona native was the only player to appear and start in all 20 matches for the Tigers last year. The forward tallied three goals, five assists, and 1,551 minutes on the pitch while earning United Soccer Coaches All-Southeast Region Third Team honors in 2023.
A native of Reykjivic, Iceland, Hermannsdottir continues to be one of the top midfielders to watch in the nation. She enters year three at LSU with 11 goals, four assists and 2,366 minutes in her career.
Galligan, a dual forward/midfielder out of Ashburn, Virginia, enters her second year with the Tigers after a breakout debut season in 2023. She recorded four goals, five assists and played in all 20 matches in her freshman season.
Ferguson joined the squad from East Carolina University, where she spent two seasons and was the 2023 American Athletic Conference Co-Defensive Player of the Year. A native of Conyers, Georgia, she will serve as a vice captain on the squad as she enters her junior season this upcoming fall. United Soccer Coaches named her a defender to watch in 2024.
Cheesman is a defender out of Lafayette, Colorado, who transferred to LSU from the University of North Carolina, where she tallied 175 minutes on the pitch in her nine games played and helped lead the Tar Heels to two NCAA Tournament appearances. The defender was rated four stars by Top Drawer Soccer in the recruiting rankings in 2022 prior to starting her collegiate career at UNC.
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 all enter 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 returns 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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