Lady Wolves Ready for Challenge in 2024 Season

WESSON - The 2023-24 season saw the Lady Wolves jump out to a 6-3-1 start to the campaign and despite some late season stumbles, the team made a second straight trip to the playoffs and had their season come to an end in the Region 23 Quarterfinals once again. This year, the Lady Wolves are bringing in a lot of new faces to mix with some veteran experience from last year's squad and head coach Tom Cosgrave says he likes what this team brings to the pitch each day.

"We have a lot of new faces this season with over 15 freshmen coming in for us and that can always be difficult when you have that many new faces at one time for your squad," stated Cosgrave. "However, the girls have done a great job of gelling with each other and buying in to our culture and hopefully we can keep that going throughout the season."

This year's squad features a roster of 25 players with just eight sophomores including Maelee Thibodeaux (Brookhaven), Unity Cutrer (St. Martin), Emmi Cook (Chesterfield, England), Siobhan Scott (Glasgow, Scotland), Alisa Johnson (Leakesville), Kaylee Roth (Brandon), Lilly Hutto (Meadville), and Avery Rankin (Brandon). Coach Cosgrave said that the squad is going to rely on this sophomore group to be leaders to those 17 new freshmen, but he's been very impressed with what he's seen out of that group as well.

"Our freshman goalkeeper Olivia Conway (Huddersfield, England) has been very impressive and worked really hard in preseason camp so far. It will be a good battle between her and Maelee for that spot in goal," added Cosgrave. "We are also lucky on the attacking side that we have three returners in Lisa, Siobhan, and Avery who will be a big threat going forward for us. But we have seen Isabella Moore (Starkville), Madeline Logan (Brandon), and Sara Pinzon (Starkville) all doing great things for us to help with the offensive attack in our preseason work. Hopefully we will see them chipping in goals throughout the season."

"Emmi and Kaylee have had really great preseason camps, and we are going to depend on them to help anchor our defensive backline," stated Cosgrave. "Kristina Seymour (Madison) and Michaela Sannoh (London, England) have both fit in really well on that backline too. We have used over 20 players in our preseason games and we have experimented with a lot of combinations across the whole squad to help us determine what that starting eleven will look like on the pitch this season."

Cosgrave also talked about the tough schedule in 2024 that the Lady Wolves will face both in and out of conference play.

"Anytime you have six Top-20 teams within your conference it's always going to be tough," said Cosgrave. "We have to prepare ourselves quickly for those tough matchups because it's similar to the top-flight leagues where you have to be ready to go everytime you step out on the pitch. It's definitely a tough challenge, but one we look forward to for this season."

The Lady Wolves start their season on the road against East Central on Friday, September 6, and then have their home opener one week later against LSU-Alexandria on Friday, September 13.