Seven Cards and Kogut Named All-Southland Conference

FRISCO, Texas — As Lamar University's women's soccer team prepares for the upcoming Southland Conference tournament, they were given honors from the conference for their play this season. Among the accolades they received included SLC Defender, Goalkeeper, and Coach of the Year honors. In all, seven players were recipients of the all-conference awards.

After a historic season that saw her break both the school's shutout (19) and wins records (30), Nicole Panis received the goalkeeper of the year award. Despite making 63 saves on the season, she led the entire conference with a 0.52 GAA, a .887 save percentage, and eight shutouts. Panis was also a four-time recipient of the SLC Goalkeeper of the Week award.

Earning defender of the year honors was Arely Alaniz, who led the defense in allowing a conference-low eight goals in regular season play and contributed to eight shutouts. She would also dish out two assists and score two game-winning goals, including the championship clincher against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (10/23/22).

Alaniz and Panis were both named to the conference first team, which marks their first and second honors respectively. Also on the first team for LU was Cariel Ellis, Kaisa Juvonen, Christine Kitaru, and Isela Ramirez. Ellis would help the Cardinals squad by scoring eight goals and dish out five assists on just 38 shots. This included a two-goal performance against Texas A&M-Commerce (10/14/22) and also two SLC Offensive Player of the Week awards.

Juvonen appears on her third all-conference honor and first on the first team after twice being named second team. Starting 13 games, she helped LU's defense to eight shutouts. She recorded an assist at Southeastern Louisiana.

Like Ellis, Kitaru was honored twice by the SLC as Offensive Player of the Week. Kitaru set a new season high with 10 goals, which was second in the conference. This included her first career hat-trick against Tarleton Sate (8/28/22). She also led the conference in shots (47) and shots on goal (30). This is her second career all-conference honor as she was a Western Athletic Conference second team member in 2021.

Ramirez would finished conference play with six assists, including two against Houston and Louisiana. She also scored a goal against A&M-Commerce and Nicholls. This marks her second career all-conference honor and first in the SLC after receiving second-team honors from last season.

LU's lone second-team member was Trinity Clark. The junior transfer would score a goal against Louisiana and dish out an assist against Nicholls while firing 12 shots including seven on goal.

Head coach Nathan Kogut earned SLC Coach of the Year after leading the Cardinals to their third regular season conference title in five years with a league best 13-1-2 overall mark and a 10-1-1 (31 points) conference record. Under his leadership, LU secured the top seed in the conference tournament.

The Cardinals will wait for Friday to have their first conference tournament showdown against Houston Christian. The game will kickoff at 4:00 p.m.