The 2024-25 Kentucky athletics season is finally upon us. And it began Thursday in victorious fashion.
The first UK athletics contest of the 2024-25 school year — a women’s soccer home match against Central Michigan — took place Thursday night in Lexington at the Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex on UK’s campus.
Kentucky came away with a 2-0 win over Central Michigan thanks to goals from freshmen Sydni Fink and Alexis Tylenda.
“Excited for the start,” third-year UK head coach Troy Fabiano said postgame. “Because you know how it is. In the beginning it’s always a little bumpy, a little bit rough. So happy with the 2-0 win.”
In addition to serving as the first sporting event of the new UK athletics season, Thursday’s result also provides a winning start for one of UK’s more intriguing programs.
UK women’s soccer hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2014, but the Wildcats came close last year after posting a 9-4-6 (W-L-D) record that included a record-setting 13-match unbeaten run to begin the 2023 season.
Last season’s memorable campaign for the Wildcats saw former forward Jordyn Rhodes set a new program record for all-time goals scored, and UK also posted the program’s first win over a ranked opponent since 2016.
UK’s 2023 season ended in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals, which marked the first time the Wildcats had played on that postseason stage since 2014.
“(We’re) a little bit more athletic, a little bit deeper this year,” Fabiano said Thursday. “… It’s been the most competitive environment I’ve ever had, since I’ve been at Kentucky, at training. From top to bottom, we have some depth now. We’re competing hard.”
Now, it’s a new-look UK squad, with some important holdovers, that are looking to vault the Cats back into the national postseason.
Fabiano’s massive 2024 roster includes 40 players, with 25 of them being newcomers and 16 of those players being freshmen.
A critical veteran piece who is back with the Wildcats is graduate student goalkeeper Marz Josephson. A former North Carolina Tar Heel who was part of three UNC teams that reached the Women’s College Cup (the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament), Josephson set a smattering of UK records during her first season in Lexington in 2023.
Josephson finished last season with a career-best 52 saves and a 0.62 goals against average, which was the third-best mark in a season in UK history. Her nine shutouts in 2023 tied for the second-most ever by a UK goalkeeper in one season.
“She’s been through the storm, she knows what it’s all about,” Fabiano said about Josephson, who played all 1,730 minutes of the season in goal for UK last year. “… Obviously when you have somebody that has that experience, I think it calms a lot of people in front… She’s vocal. So I think it’s been huge for us.”
Upcoming Kentucky sports events as new school year begins
The early part of the Kentucky athletics schedule for the 2024-25 school year is dominated by soccer matches.
The UK women host Morehead State — a team that made the NCAA Tournament last year for the fourth time in school history — at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Next Thursday night, Aug. 22, will feature a Kentucky women’s and men’s soccer doubleheader. The UK women will host Detroit at 5:30 p.m. and the UK men will host Oral Roberts in a season-opening match at 7:30 p.m.
The early-season schedule for UK women’s soccer this season is also highlighted by a home match against preseason No. 11 UCLA on Sunday, Sept. 8. That match, which will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU, will be played just a few hours before Lexington Sporting Club’s new professional women’s soccer team makes its home debut at the club’s new soccer-specific stadium.
The first non-soccer UK varsity sporting event of the 2024-25 school year will be a Kentucky volleyball match against Nebraska, last year’s national runner-up, on Tuesday, Aug. 27, at 7 p.m. That match is being played at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville and will be broadcast on ESPN2 as part of the AVCA First Serve Showcase.
UK volleyball, which has won at least a share of the SEC title in seven straight seasons, will host Northern Kentucky in its home opener on Friday, Aug. 30, at 6:30 p.m. That match that will mark the re-opening of Memorial Coliseum following an $82 million renovation.
Mark Stoops comments on Kentucky football probation, vacated 2021 wins for first time
A trio of Olympians among six new inductees to Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame.
Here are the conditions of the UK football and swimming programs’ two-year probation
UK and Mitch Barnhart deny wrongdoing in sexual abuse lawsuit filed over swim coach
Call me crazy, but here are 10 predictions for the upcoming football season
