KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Louisiana Christian University men's soccer program had been knocking on the locked door of the NAIA top-25 poll for the past 24 weeks in-a-row, a span going back approximately three seasons, but instead of finding the key and quietly sliding onto the list, they burst through the door by kicking the door off its hinges as the Wildcats are ranked #25 in the nation per the release sent on October 9, 2024, the first time in school history they have been on the inside-looking-out.
 
Saturday's opponent, (RV) LSU Shreveport, has won 14 consecutive Red River Athletic Conference regular season matches and the 2023 RRAC Championship Game rematch will be a top-30 battle as the Pilots are on the Cats' heels at #27, six points off LCU's pace.
 
Regarding the teams that Louisiana Christian has already played, the resume continues to stack up against other squads they would be fighting with for an at-large bid, if they do not secure one of the two automatic qualifiers.
 
Texas Wesleyan has vastly improved since opening night as they sport a 7-5-1 (57.7%) record, USAO is above .500 at 5-4-3 (54.2%), William Carey has risen from #16 to #12 with their only blemishes being ties to LCU and LSUS, Williams Baptist (the Wildcats' lone defeat) is among the clubs receiving votes, and LSU Alexandria is deadlocked with the men from Pineville while looking at the standings, both sitting at 4-0-1 and second place in the Red River.
 
The Orange and Blue make their poll debut on Thursday evening vs. Texas A&M-Texarkana at 7:30 p.m. followed by a gargantuan showdown on Wildcat Field at 3:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon against LSU Shreveport, the two teams that represented the league at the national tournament a season ago.
 
To view the entire NAIA Top-25 Poll, click here.
 

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