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LAFAYETTE – The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns Women’s Soccer team released its 2022 schedule on Thursday, with 10 home matches at the Home Bank Track/Soccer Facility on the slate for first-year coach Chris McBride.

Louisiana will open with five straight matches at home, beginning with exhibition matches against McNeese (August 10) and Southern (August 13) before officially opening the season on August 18 against former Sun Belt Conference rival Florida International.

“It’s going to be a really, exciting schedule” McBride said. “Having five matches at home to start with is going to allow us to set our team and get into the swing of things with settling down, getting classes started and training.”

The home schedule will continue for the Ragin’ Cajuns with matches against Stephen F. Austin (August 21) and Houston (August 25) before opening their road slate on August 28 at Louisiana Tech.

The match with its in-state rival is the first of five straight on the road for Louisiana which includes matches at Lamar (Sept. 1), Abilene Christian (Sept. 4) before a pair of matches in the Pacific Northwest against Idaho (Sept. 9) and Eastern Washington (Sept. 11).

“That will really challenge us as we play some really talented teams in there, some regional teams and a nice trip out west to Idaho and Eastern Washington,” McBride added. “All of the teams that we have on the non-conference schedule are teams that will challenge us on both sides of the ball, and that’s what we’re looking for … to make sure that we have a good idea of where we’re at as a team going into the Sun Belt Conference schedule.”

Louisiana officially opens the 2022 Sun Belt Conference portion of its schedule on Sept. 16 against league newcomer Old Dominion. The Ragin’ Cajuns will also host SBC East Division member Coastal Carolina (Oct. 2) and will travel to face Georgia State (Sept. 21) and App State (Oct. 23).

The Ragin’ Cajuns will play each of their West Division rivals during the season with home matches set against South Alabama (Sept. 25), Texas State (Oct. 9) and Troy (Oct. 20) along with road contests at Arkansas State (Oct. 6), ULM (Oct. 16) and the regular-season finale at newcomer Southern Miss (Oct. 27).

“It’s not going to be easy, especially with an East and West split with four crossover matches. All of the matches in the conference will be extremely challenging,” said McBride. “Between home and away matches, and the travel that we’ve got this year, the conference has done a phenomenal job of making the schedule as fair as possible and also very rewarding for our athletes with no back-to-back weekend trips.”