PENSACOLA, Fla. --- The University of West Florida women's soccer team kicks off the season on the road. The Argos will begin weekend play at St. Petersburg, Fla. against Eckerd College Friday, Sept. 1 at 5:00 p.m. CT. UWF will follow with a Sunday matchup, Sept. 3 in Lakeland, Fla. at 10:00 a.m. CT to take on Florida Southern.
 
Reviewing Last Season
The Argos finished the 2022 season with an 18-4-1 record. Despite losing in the semifinals of the Gulf South Conference Tournament, the Argos bounced back in the NCAA DII Tournament and took the South Regional title to advance to the quarterfinals. The South Region crown was the program's eighth since 2002.
 
Beforehand, UWF consistently stayed as a top-3 team in the conference during regular season. They finished the year at No. 1 and were crowned as GSC Regular Season champions.
 
Familiar Faces Rejoining the Pitch
The team has big shoes to fill after losing last season's National Player of the Year and an All-American. On a good note, the program returns majority of last year's players.
 
Defending GSC Defensive Player of the Year and All-American selection, Maciah Lipsey, returns in goal. Lipsey led the conference with a .638 goals against average. She finished with 54 saves and allowed only 13 goals in 23 games played. Lipsey finished with a 0.89 save percentage.
 
2022 All-GSC First Team selection and this season's Preseason All-GSC team is redshirt Manami Okada. The midfielder came in as a transfer last season and made her mark. Okada recorded 23 consecutive starts and finished with 16 points.
 
Joining Okada in the middle line are two Preseason All-GSC selections: Ahnalie Layman and Destiny Hird. They each started in 23 games and combined for 17 points last season.
 
Argos in the Polls
UWF currently sits at No. 5 in the United Soccer Coaches preseason rankings. They are the only GSC team to be presented in the top-25 national poll.
 
Voted on by the GSC coaches, UWF was predicted to finish second in the conference. The Argos led the poll with first place votes (7). They are followed by Mississippi College who received four first place votes and is predicted to win the GSC title in the preseason voting.
 
About Eckerd College
The Tritons finished last season with a 5-5-4 record. The team finished eighth out of 11 teams in the conference.
 
Last season, the Argos hosted the Tritons in the home opener and took the win 5-0. All goals were scored in the first 50 minutes of the match. The Argos outshot the Tritons 13-2.
 
About Florida Southern College
The Mocs went 13-2-4 last season and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Within their conference, they finished at No. 1 in the regular season but fell short in penalty kicks in the semifinals of the Sunshine State Conference Tournament.
 
The Argos and Mocs went head-to-head in a non-conference match up last season. The Mocs took the victory, 1-0, from a late second half goal.
 
Florida Southern is also receiving votes in the United Soccer Coaches preseason poll.
 
You can stay up to date with the Argos on goargos.com or follow UWF Women's Soccer on Instagram and Twitter @uwfwsoc.