After victories last week against Butler and Northern Colorado, the IU women’s soccer team will look to carry positive momentum into this weekend’s slate of matches.
The Hoosiers will participate in the Hoosier Challenge Cup, a non-conference tournament in Indiana. Both Bill Armstrong Stadium and the Butler Bowl in Indianapolis will be used as venues for the tournament, although both of IU’s games will be played in Bloomington.
Butler, LSU and SMU will join IU to complete the tournament’s field of four. However, having previously played Butler this season, IU will only face LSU and SMU in the Hoosier Challenge Cup.
“We are playing two very good teams this weekend. I think we feel more comfortable at home,” IU Coach Amy Berbary said. “Our focus has been all week to try and get a little bit better than the last. The nerves have kind of gone away, and I think playing at home helps get our young players comfortable.”
First up for IU will be a match against LSU on Friday afternoon. The Tigers made last season’s NCAA Tournament as an at-large qualifier with a 13-6-4 record, although they have struggled to begin this season.
LSU has won only one of its first four matches and has suffered defeats to Virginia Tech, George Washington and Colgate. The matchup between the Tigers and Hoosiers will be only the second time the schools have faced each other, with the first meeting coming last season when the Tigers won 4-0 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“We did play LSU last year, but every year it’s a new team,” Berbary said. “We are completely different from last year. We’ve watched a little bit of video on LSU, but we’ve really focused on ourselves this week.”
The LSU attack features two proven goal scorers in senior forward Summer Clarke and junior forward Jorian Baucom. Each player scored twice in last season’s victory for the Tigers against the Hoosiers, and both are tied for the most career goals by an active LSU player with 24 apiece.
Tournament play will conclude for IU on Monday with an early afternoon match against SMU, a team IU has not played in more than 20 years. After missing the NCAA Tournament last season with a 5-10-3 record, the Mustangs have started this season strong.
Wins against Northwestern State and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi by 8-0 and 9-0 scores respectively have placed SMU among the nation’s highest scoring teams despite a two-game sample size. The Mustangs will have played three matches by the time they face the Hoosiers on Monday, as they begin the Hoosier Challenge Cup by playing Butler on Friday.
Freshman midfielder Allie Thornton has four of SMU’s 17 goals through two matches, while sophomore forward Vanessa Valadez tallied two goals and three assists in SMU’s opening games.
It is likely that freshman goalkeeper Sarah L’Hommedieu will begin the weekend in net for IU after recording two shutouts in last week’s matches.
L’Hommedieu was honored by the Big Ten Conference as the defensive player of the week and the freshman player of the week for her performances. However, Berbary will continue to evaluate the goalkeeper position every week, just as she does with the starting lineup.
“The team is just starting to gain confidence,” Berbary said. “We will go with who has been the best and who best fits the game tactically.”
