STARKVILLE – The unbeaten Mississippi State soccer program begins conference play Thursday night against No. 14 Arkansas (5-1-1). The SEC home opener will kick off at 6:30 p.m. CT on SECN+.
“We are looking forward to opening conference play at home,” head coach James Armstrong said. “There’s never an easy game in the SEC, and that’s particularly true with Arkansas. It’s going to be a good test for us, but one we’re super excited about.”
Arkansas enters Thursday with a 3-0 win over Grand Canyon under its belt. Only six Razorbacks were responsible for the team’s 18 shots. Arkansas carried the one-goal advantage into the half before securing netting the final pair two minutes apart, in the 71st and 73rd minute. MSU, meanwhile, gears up for its sixth home match of the season. The Dawgs are coming off an unbeaten, non-conference season that was capped by a 4-0 win over Presbyterian. Three players netted first-career goals and GK Maddy Anderson tied the MSU career shutouts record at 12.
W, 4-0 vs. Presbyterian
The Dawgs capped off their non-conference season with a 4-0 win over Presbyterian to stretch its unbeaten streak to eight. Elle McCaslin, Juliet Moore and KK Pavatt all scored the first goal of their careers, and the MSU backline picked up the sixth clean sheet of the season. The 34 shots is tied for seventh-highest in a match in MSU history and for only the sixth time, MSU did not allow a single shot across 90 minutes.
With six clean sheets already recorded through the first eight games, Anderson finds herself tied for the MSU career shutouts record (12). Currently in a tie for second, the junior goalkeeper has already broken the 12-shutout threshold in 19 less games than current recordholder Skylar Rosson (2008-12).
Six of MSU’s 10 SEC matches are against teams who are ranked or receiving votes this season: No. 5 South Carolina, No. 11 Alabama, No. 14 Arkansas, No. 15 Ole Miss, No. 23 Auburn and Texas A&M (RV). The matches against the Rebels and the Tigers will be back-to-back road trips for the Bulldogs.
The 14 goals scored by the Bulldogs is one shy from tying the 2021 total. 12 of the 14 have been scored by underclassmen: six from freshman and six from sophomores. The 14 goals scored is the most through the first eight games of a season since 2018, where the Dawgs recorded…
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