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LAFAYETTE – When he was announced as the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns fourth women’s soccer coach in school history during the spring of 2022, Chris McBride knew that it would be a process in molding his team into a championship caliber program.

And after watching his inaugural team in the vermilion and white kits post a 3-9-5 record, McBride eagerly anticipated how the offseason heading into the 2023 season would unfold.

The result? It was definitely headed in the direction that McBride envisioned after spending the previous five seasons at in-state program Southeastern Louisiana.

McBride’s second team at Louisiana grew a cohesiveness, found leaders and held each other accountable. With a lineup of returning veterans mixed in with some Division I transfers and a talented freshmen class, the Ragin’ Cajuns more than doubled their overall record from 2022, finishing with a 7-9-2 record.

The Ragin’ Cajuns also doubled their win total on a 2-6-2 Sun Belt Conference record in 2022 to finish with 4-6-0 mark in league play, which included a 1-0 victory at eventual SBC Tournament champion Old Dominion.

Those baby steps seemed little, but in the grand scheme of things, that is what McBride was looking for in the future development of his team.

“Coming into this year, we had a really successful offseason,” McBride said. “That’s probably the hardest this group has ever worked in an offseason. They saw a lot of benefit through the whole spring and they grew a lot both personally and as soccer players.

“We saw a lot of development in what they were doing on the field, but also on their commitment to excellence in regards to team culture and individual development. They put in a lot of work into what they were doing with regards to their team and their consecutiveness with their team. And that showed moving into the fall.

“We started to come back in August and the team was way more cohesive than where we were at the same time last year. The cohesiveness that we had in the fall was a by-product of what we had in the spring.”

Nothing tested McBride’s team more than the early part of the 2023 schedule which saw seven of its first eight matches on the road. Counting exhibition matches at in-state opponents McNeese and Northwestern State, the Ragin’ Cajuns saw numerous nights spent on busses, airplanes and in hotels.

“Of the first eight games, seven of them were on the road,” McBride said. “Five games during that stretch (MTSU, Grambling, SFA, FAU, FIU) really tested our character as a group. And it challenged us to see us through a lot of weary nights, a lot of long travel, sleeps in hotels, long travel on planes and busses … could we still be a group that could get along, push each other for excellence and still compete at the same time. And the answer we found out was, yes we could.”

Louisiana officially opened the second year of the McBride era with a 1-1 draw at Middle Tennessee on August 17. From there, the Ragin’ Cajuns reeled off three straight wins beginning three days later with a 2-0 victory over South Florida, a regionally-ranked program which was coming off a shutout victory at LSU in its opener.

That win catapulted Louisiana to two more shutout victories, a 3-0 win at Grambling and a 1-0 clean sheet at Stephen F. Austin – the Ragin’ Cajuns first-ever victory over the Ladyjacks in five meetings.

Louisiana would then finish 0-1-1 on its trip to south Florida the following week, facing former SBC rivals and current regionally-ranked programs Florida Atlantic and Florida International. A 2-1 setback at FAU on August 31 was the first of the season for the Ragin’ Cajuns before the team opened the month of September in a 2-2 draw at FIU despite a pair of goals from Megan Bradley.

A pair of shutout losses – including a 3-0 decision at Texas State in the Sun Belt Conference opener – put the Ragin’ Cajuns at 3-3-2 overall heading into another arduous road task in facing ODU, unbeaten at the time (6-0-2) and had only allowed one goal in its first eight matches.

After a scoreless first half, Louisiana’s Tatum Beck would find the back of the net to score the match’s lone goal and hand the Ragin’ Cajuns a 1-0 win over the eventual SBC Tournament champions and NCAA Women’s Soccer Championship participants.

Injuries chipped away at the depth of the team as Louisiana managed three more wins over its final nine matches in the ninth-best RPI league in Division I Women’s College Soccer. The Ragin’ Cajuns earned wins over Southern Miss and Arkansas State before getting a gritty 1-0 win in the regular-season finale against Marshall to qualify for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament for the first time since 2021.

“We set some goals at the beginning of the year and those goals were to qualify for the (Sun Belt) conference tournament,” said McBride. “For us to finish in the RPI (131) this year to where we’ve been historically as a program, for us to finish double our conference and overall wins (from 2022), to have the group as connected as they are now is a big win as a program and a staff. We couldn’t be happier for the group and where they’re at today.”

With the Ragin’ Cajuns returning to the SBC postseason for the 17th time in school history, where do they go from here?

Nine of the 11 players who scored goals in 2023, led by Bradley (4 goals), Hailly Waterhouse (3 goals), Sisley Stephens (2 goals), Emma Bates (2 goals), Briana Henry (2 goals), Beck, Bailey Giddings (1 goal), Sophie Placke (1 goal) and Anneliese Switzer (1 goal), as well as goalkeepers Makenna Garcia and Natalie Mayes are slated to return for the 2024 season. Veteran leaders Lucy Ortiz (a co-captain), Mariella Stephens, Brynn Dunbar, Cassandra Decombe and Lauren Bennett are among a group of players who are also expected to return for Louisiana.

“The next step for us is that we have to be able to prepare ourselves to be more equally competitive in games,” said McBride. “We had some great performances and great team results in 2023, but in some of those matches, we did a great job on the defensive side but not so much on the offensive side. When we talk about defending, defending is just a will … it’s a willingness to go out there and defend and to the dirty work, and the group that we have are willing to do that.”

With another offseason coming up and the remaining veterans ready to help influence the next crop of recruits, Louisiana will continue to work on the little things needed in becoming one of the top programs in the Sun Belt Conference and the Southeast region.

“The strides we need to make in this offseason is that we need to have more control over the impact of games rather than preventing the opposition,” said McBride. “Physically, we need to be more prepared as well. We’re not where we need to be with regards to physical preparedness. I still think we’re a step slow for the conference and we can improve in multiple physical areas of the conference. And that’s going to be a big thing for us this offseason is making sure we’re ready for that. We’re going to have bigger goals each year, but we’re going to make them realistic.”