BAYLOR vs. LOUISIANA TECH
Thursday, Aug. 31 at 7 p.m. CT
Betty Lou Mays Field
Video: Big 12 Now ESPN+
 
BAYLOR at BUTLER
Sunday, Sept. 3 at 12 p.m. CT
Bud & Jackie Sellick Bowl
Video: FloSports

BAYLOR BEARS
2023 Record: 1-1-1
Head Coach: Michelle Lenard (North Texas, 2003)
Career Record: 206-89-28 (16th season)
BU Record: 5-12-3 (2nd season)
 
LOUISIANA TECH BULLDOGS
2023 Record: 2-1-1
Head Coach: Steve Voltz (Florida, 1999)
Career Record: 17-34-7 (4^th season)
LA Tech Record: 15-18-7 (3^rd season)
 
BUTLER BULLDOGS
2023 Record: 1-3
Head Coach: Tari St. John (Purdue, 2003)
Career Record: 178-127-36 (18^th season)
Butler Record: 178-127-36 (18^th season)


By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Other than a handful of spring exhibition games, Baylor soccer will play its first home game in 10 months when the Bears (1-1-1) host Louisiana Tech (2-1-1) at 7 p.m. Thursday at Betty Lou Mays Field.
            "Playing at home is another variable," said second-year head coach Michelle Lenard, "but I think our players are very comfortable on this field. And they're going to enjoy playing in front of their friends and family. So, I expect nothing but the best from us in that environment."
            Freshman Skylar Zinnecker, who scored a goal in the Bears' 2-0 season-opening win at Oregon, said she is "excited just to get to play on Betty Lou, finally."
            "I don't really know what to expect," Zinnecker said. "It's definitely going to be fun having our friends and family here to support us. I have some high school friends that go to Baylor . . . and they said they're going to come. That's really exciting."
            This will also be the first home fall game at Baylor for Missouri transfer Hannah Boughton, a sophomore midfielder who has started two of the first three games and had two of her four shots on goal.
            "I'm super excited about that," Boughton said. "We're not a team that's going to go down easy. We all have really good chemistry on the team, and I think we're only going to go up from here."
            The Bears are coming off a 1-1 draw on the road at Texas A&M in front of one of the largest-ever crowds for a regular-season NCAA women's soccer game (6,743). Ashley Merrill scored a first-half goal barely 15 minutes in that stood up until a penalty kick by the Aggies with right at 15 minutes left.
            "That was a momentum shift, for sure," Lenard said. "You hate to see a big game decided that way. So, while it was disappointing and we might have disagreed with the call, the girls handled it well. Even after that, you saw a little spark in us. We went down to the other end of the field and had an opportunity or two of our own. Which just showed the fight that this team does have, and the competitiveness and the desire to find a way to win."
            Maybe the most impressive thing in Saturday's game was how well Baylor's young team handled the pressure of an intense atmosphere on the road.
            "That shows a lot about our team, our maturity, our ability to handle some pressure," Lenard said. "I think that was a big question mark going in: How are we going to do? Because we hadn't been in that environment yet. . . . Happy that we played well. We scored a goal, we didn't concede a goal in the run of play and we had more possession than they had."
            Zinnecker said she had never played in an environment like that.
            "It's a great experience, but definitely makes it harder to play," she said. "I think a 1-1 draw against a good team like A&M is a good score, especially on the road. We definitely had an opportunity to win that game. It didn't go in our favor, but really proud of how we played our style. Playing A&M from the spring to now, it's just a different team."
            The Bears will face a Louisiana Tech team that lost on the road at Colorado State but has wins over Colorado College and McNeese State and a 1-1 tie with ULM. This is the Bulldogs' first-ever matchup against Baylor.
            "This is going to be a big game for them. They're going to want to come and make an impression, and we're going to need to be ready for that," Lenard said. "But ultimately, we feel confident that if we can execute our game plan similarly to the way we did against A&M that we'll come out on top."
            Including two exhibition games, Baylor will play its sixth road game of the season when the Bears face Butler (1-3-0) at 12 p.m. Sunday in Indianapolis. But then they will play six straight at home, including conference matchups against Texas, BYU and Texas Tech.

 
STORY LINES

• Baylor enters its third week of play with a home opener against Louisiana Tech on Thursday, Aug. 31. BU will then travel to Indianapolis, Ind. to face Butler on Sunday, Sept. 2 at 12 p.m. CT. After the trip to Indiana, the Bears will then remain home for six home games during the month of September.  
• The 2023 season marks the 27th season of the Baylor Soccer program. During that time, BU has won four Big 12 titles, advanced to two Elite Eights and had four All-Americans to go with countless All-Big 12 and Academic All-Big 12 honorees.
• This season also marks the second year of the Michelle Lenard coaching era, as she was selected as the Bears sixth head coach in program history in December of 2021.
• With the new Big 12 teams joining the conference this season, the Bears will only play 10 of the 13 other opponents this season. The Bears will face all four of the new schools, Cincinnati, UCF, Houston and BYU. BU will not face Oklahoma, Oklahoma State or West Virginia in regular season play.
• Baylor has a 31 person roster this season and features 16 returners and 15 newcomers. 
• BU has nine starters returning, Madison Martin, Jenna Patterson, Reneta Vargas, Blythe Obar, Ashley Merrill, Ava Colberg, Morgan Greensage, Hallie Augustyn and Hannah Augustyn
• Joining the 2022 squad are four transfers, Makinzie Short (Oklahoma), Natalie Vatter (Ole Miss), Hannah Boughton (Missouri) and Tyler Isgrig (TCU). 
• The 11 incoming freshmen are, Salma Simonin, Adriana Merriam, Callie Conrad, Brianna Chesley, Theresa McCullough, Georgia Mulholland, Skylar Zinnecker, Claire Kniss, Kaitlin Swann, Caroline Staubach and Riley Franklin.
• This season the Bears roster features an international student-athlete for the first time since the 2017 season when the Bears had two. Salma Simonin comes to Baylor from Manchester, United Kingdom.
• The Bears opened the season with a 1-1 record during week one, where they defeated the Oregon Ducks, 2-0, before traveling to Nebraska and falling to the Huskers, 2-1. 
• Three of the Bears first four goals this season were scored by newcomers, freshman Skylar Zinnecker and Callie Conrad and another from transfer Tyler Isgrig. Conrad also recorded an assist in the first week of play, making her the first freshman to score points in the in each of the Bears first two games of a season since Maddie Algya and Taylor Moon did so in 2018.
• Goalkeepers Makinzie Short and Ashlee Zirkel have split time in goal this season with Short making starts in the first two games and Zirkel starting against the Aggies. 
• The Bears recorded 22 shots against Oregon, the most in a game since Sept. 16, 2021, versus SFA (24).
• Baylor recorded a 1-1 draw against Texas A&M last week, with last year's leading point scorer, Ashley Merrill, netting her first goal of the season off of assists from Natalie Vatter and Tyler Isgrig. The Bears played in front of 6,743 fans at Ellis Field, the 9th largest regular season crowd in NCAA women's soccer history.
• In the past 50 games at home, Baylor has a record of 29-12-9, that's good for a .670 winning percentage that dates back to the end of the 2017 season.
• BU has never faced off against the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs before. 
• The Bears are 1-0 all-time against Butler, with the only meeting between these two teams occurring on Sept. 13, 2018, when Baylor won 2-0.