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News release from Texas A&M Athletics:
BEAUMONT – The Texas A&M Aggies open their 32nd season of soccer Thursday night with a Lone Star State road trip to battle the Lamar Cardinals. Action at the LU Soccer Complex starts at 7 p.m. and streaming is available at ESPN+.
A radio call of the match is available with David Ellis (play-by-play) and Thomas Dick (color) on the call. It airs on Gospel 97.3 FM in the Brazos Valley with audio also available in the 12th Man Mobile app.
The Maroon & White welcome back 10 starters led by All-SEC standouts Carolyn Calzada and Mia Pante. The roster also includes nine players which have earned conference all-freshman team status headlined 2023 SEC honorees Adysen Armenta and Margo Matula. Other stars return up and down the pitch including defender Macy Matula, midfielders Sydney Becerra and Taylor Pounds and forward Jazmine Wilkinson, A&M’s leading goal scorer in 2023.
Newcomers that will take the pitch include three transfers. Forward Allison Lowrey earned All-Big Ten Third Team in 2022 and 2023 All-WAC midfielder Leah Pirro. They are joined by Kennedy Clark who started 22 matches for Xavier last season, notching 12 points on three goals and six assists. Lowrey, who logged 57 points with 21 goals and 15 assists in 80 career games at Rutgers, accounted for six goals and four assists in 2023. Pirro ranked ninth in the nation in assists last year with 13 to go with two goals in her 23 matches and was recently named to the United Soccer Coaches All-America Midfielder Watch List.
The Aggies warmed up for the season with 1-0 exhibition match victories against Rice at Ellis Field and on the road against SMU.
The Cardinals are skippered by former A&M assistant coach and College Station native Nathan Kogut. After spending four years on the Aggie staff (2018-21), Kogut was hired at Lamar where he has gone 30-5-5 in two seasons claiming the Southland Conference double in both his seasons.
The only prior meeting between Texas A&M and Lamar came in the first round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament. A No. 6 Texas A&M team fought off a battling Lamar squad, 1-0, to record a school-record 14th consecutive victory. The Aggies got on the scoreboard in the eighth minute with an own goal. The Maroon & White were unable to add an insurance goal, but they dictated terms for most of the matching, owning advantages in shots (20-5), shots-on-goal (10-2) and corner kicks (9-3).
For the first time in program history, the Aggies hit the road to face a Southland Conference team. Texas A&M is 240-0 against the Southland with every match coming at Ellis Field. The Maroon & White have outscored Southland squads 131-6, but Lamar has been the toughest nut to crack with the Aggies gutting out a 1-0 victory.
Texas A&M is 23-7-1 all-time in the first match of the year. The Aggies are 16-5-1 in their last 22 openers with three losses coming to the preseason No. 1 team, including North Carolina (0-3) in 2010, Florida State (0-1) in 2016 and Florida State (0-1) in 2021. The other losses were against No. 7 Duke (0-2) in 2013 and No. 6 Florida State (1-2) in 2024).