HARROGATE, Tenn. — Coming off a historic season that saw the team make a return to the national stage, LMU women’s soccer coach Sean Fraser has announced the schedule for the 2019 season. The schedule features 18 matches, with eight being at home in the LMU Soccer Complex.

The team will open the season on the road with a pair of matches in North Carolina as they play at Chowan on Sept. 5 and Mount Olive on Sept. 7.

The home opener will be on Sept. 10 against Converse, followed by a pair of games in Milledgeville, Ga. vs. Georgia College (Sept. 13) and West Georgia (Sept. 15) before the team opens up South Atlantic Conference play at Carson-Newman on Sept. 18. That match is a rematch of both the SAC Tournament final, which was won by LMU 3-1, and the NCAA Southeast Regional, which saw LMU and the Eagles tie 1-1 but LMU advanced 5-3 in the penalty shootout.

The team then hosts Queens in a SAC match on Sept. 21 and Shaw on Sept. 24 and travels to Wingate for a Sept. 28 SAC contest. They then have a three-match home stand with SAC matches against Lenoir-Rhyne (Oct. 5) and Catawba (Oct. 12) with a non-conference match in-between vs. Lees-McRae on Oct. 9.

They then hit the road for the next three matches, playing SAC contests at Tusculum (Oct. 16) and Anderson (Oct. 19) and a non-conference meeting with Salem University on Oct. 23.

LMU will close out the season with three SAC matches, facing Newberry at home on Oct. 26, Coker on the road on Nov. 2, and Mars Hill at home on Nov. 6 to close out the regular season.

The SAC Tournament begins on Nov. 9 with quarterfinal round matches hosted by the higher-seeded team. The semifinal and final will be on Nov. 15 and 17 at the Mecklenburg County Sports Complex in Matthews, N.C.

“We are excited to get back on the field this fall,” said Fraser. “I think our schedule provides relative competition that should test our team appropriately as we look to continue our growth.”

Last season, LMU posted a 14-5-2 record, won the SAC Tournament crown for the first time since 2007 and made their first trip back to the NCAA Southeast Regional since 2007. They reached the regional final, only to be denied what would have been the program’s second appearance in the national quarterfinals (the first was in 2004) by a 3-2 loss in overtime to Columbus State.