AUSTIN, Texas – The University of Texas women’s soccer program picked up one first-place vote while being selected to finish second in the annual Big 12 Conference preseason poll. Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own teams during the process.
Defending Big 12 regular season and tournament titlist TCU picked up seven first-place votes and 78 total points in topping the list. Texas ranked second with one first-place vote and 66 total points.
West Virginia (one first-place vote, 60 points) was third, while Texas Tech (53 points) and Oklahoma State (49 points) rounded out the top five. Oklahoma (one first-place vote, 40 points), Baylor (34 points), Kansas (30 points), Iowa State (24 points) and Kansas State (16 points) completed the preseason poll.
The Longhorns are returning 21 players from a 2021 fall campaign that saw Texas post an 11-5-6 overall record (unbeaten in the Big 12 at 6-0-3) on the way to Big 12 Conference regular-season and tournament runner-up up finishes and the program’s 15th all-time berth in the NCAA Tournament. Those returnees combined to account for 32-of-38 goals (84%), 33-of-39 assists (85%) and 97-of-115 total points (84%) from last season as well as all 22 goalkeeping starts and 10 total shutouts between the pipes.
Included among the numerous standouts returning to the Forty Acres are 2021 United Soccer Coaches All-Region selections Lexi Missimo, Trinity Byars and Emma Regan. The Big 12 Conference Freshman of the Year, Missimo scored nine goals and dished a league-high and Texas freshman record 14 assists for 32 total points (fourth in the Big 12). An All-Big 12 Conference First Team selection, Byars led the Longhorns with 12 goals (third in the Big 12) to go with 10 assists for a squad-best 34 total points (tied for second in the Big 12). Regan, a second team All-Big 12 Conference selection, started all 22 matches as a senior while playing a team-leading 2,102 of 2,113 possible minutes and helping lead Texas to 10 shutouts. Also back to help Regan power a stout defense are a pair of All-Big 12 Conference Second Team selections in graduate goalkeeper Savannah Madden (22 starts, 0.90 GAA, nine solo shutouts) and sophomore defender EmJ Cox (22 starts, 2,025 minutes, two goals, one assist, five points).