Rio Grande Valley – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) women's soccer team is scheduled to begin the 2024 season in the Southland Conference.
Last year, Lamar became the first team to win consecutive SLC Tournament titles and the first team to win consecutive regular season titles since Stephen F. Austin (SFA) won five straight titles from 2011-2015.
In 2024, UTRGV and SFA will be newcomers, joining Houston Christian, Incarnate Word, Lamar, McNeese, Nicholls, Northwestern State, Southeastern, Texas A&M-Commerce and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to make up SLC's 11 schools for women's soccer.
Seven of those teams will play in Corpus Christi from Nov. 5-10 to determine the tournament winner and NCAA Tournament entrants, with the No. 1 seed advancing to the semifinals.
Three student-athletes from SLC have earned All-America honors, including SFA's Kylie Lue in 2012, Southeastern's Hope Sabadash in 2015 and Lamar's Esther Okoronkwo in 2020.
Lue became a member of the South African national team in 2006 and six years later helped the team qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in their history.
Okoronkwo has played overseas and is a member of the Nigerian national team that qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nigeria secured their qualification with a 1–0 aggregate win over Cameroon, with Okoronkwo scoring the only goals in two matches.
Among the current members, Stephen F. Austin leads the conference in regular season wins with 11, followed by Southeastern with five, Lamar with four, Northwestern State with two and McNeese with one.
Northwestern State University and Southeastern University are tied for the conference lead in tournament wins with five, followed by Lamar University with four, Stephen F. Austin University with three, Houston Christian University with two, and McNeese University with one.
Lamar led all teams last season with an RPI ranking of 51st, followed by McNeese (200), Texas A&M-Commerce (219), Southeastern (251), Northwestern State (263), Houston Christian (267), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (276), Incarnate Word (281) and Nicholls (340). UTRGV finished 303rd and SFA 305th.
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