JACKSON, Miss - The Jackson State Women's Soccer team will return to pitch on Thursday, August 19 as they travel to Lake Charles, Louisiana to take on McNesse State to open the fall 2021 season. The match will take place at Cowgirl Field. 

The spring 2021 campaign was another successful season for head coach Ted Flogaites and the Lady Tigers as it included the team's second consecutive conference semifinals appearance. With only playing a regular-season conference slate, JSU finished with a 5-4 record. 

"Even though we had a winning record last season, I thought we were better than our record reflected", head coach Dr. Ted Flogaites said. "We were in a lot of games where we dominated large stretches of the game, but we were never able to have a healthy lineup during the COVID period which resulted in us losing a lot of key players and key chances. Having a year off, dealing with a lot of adversity, and being able to make it back to the conference semifinals is a nice accomplishment that I'm proud of. I like the idea that we played in the spring and now we are playing the fall, because the continuity is better. We've only had a couple of months off compared to a normal off-season with six months, which allowed us to not be able to pick up rust. For the most part, we're on the futbol, and we look pretty good. We have a mature group that wants to play, do things the right way, and they appreciate the chance to be at JSU and wear the jersey which are the type of prideful players that we want. All in all when you look at the spring season, the players were very heroic in terms of dealing with adversity because they had it thrown at them constantly."  

The roster is composed of 26 returners and 12 newcomers. The senior class is significantly larger than last season, from two to eight. The Lady Tigers have 10 juniors, 10 sophomores, and 10 freshman to bring the total number of players to 38. 

"Our younger players have been fantastic so far such as freshmen Kalia Uehara, Aryanna Gomez, Allyson Spicker, and Megan Richardson who is a transfer from Holmes Community College", head coach Ted Flogaites added. "We have a lot of pieces, not to mention the returners who were unhealthy such as Maya-Joy Thompson upfront, Annalise Brunson, and Brynn Walker. Not only do we have additional pieces back on the team, we have more resources as far as the coaching staff. We have our graduate assistant back Sariah Orocu and a new assistant coach Colton Bryant which gives us a full coaching staff and it makes it much easier to run our program." 

The Lady Tigers received numerous amount of postseason awards from the spring 2021 campaign. Forward Annalise Brunson received First Team All-SWAC honors. She was joined by midfielder Brynn Walker who received Second Team All-SWAC honors. 

"I think we are good enough to cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams, but in order to do it our commitment level has to be from start to finish", head coach Ted Flogaites explained. "We have a big team this year to offset injuries, to increase competitiveness, to add depth to every position, and to allow us to do things numerically. Things are going in a really good direction and I am pleased so far with their attitudes and application for the upcoming season."

For all of the latest Jackson State women's soccer news, fans can follow the official JSU women's soccer Twitter account (@GoJSUTigersSOC), Instagram account (@gojsutigerssoc) and Facebook account (Jackson State Soccer).