The SLU women have won the Atlantic 10 Conference regular season title five of the last six seasons. (Photo: Thomas Grove)

The Saint Louis University women’s soccer team was named a unanimous choice to win the 2024 Atlantic 10 Conference championship in balloting of the league’s head coaches, the league office announced Wednesday.

Saint Louis, which is seeking its sixth A-10 regular season title in the last seven seasons and was ranked the No. 12 team in the country in the United Soccer Coaches preseason poll, received all 15 first-place votes.

The Billikens have been undefeated in league play the last two seasons. The team went 9-0-1 in conference play last year and were 10-0 in 2022. The last time SLU lost a conference game was in the regular season finale in 2021.

Saint Louis has also won the A-10 Tournament championship in each of the last six seasons and will be pursuing that title again also when the time comes in November.

Dayton, which is the only team that didn’t lose to SLU last year — the teams played to a 1-1 tie last September — was picked to finish second this season, with VCU, UMass, and La Salle, which lost to Saint Louis in last year’s A-10 tournament title game, rounded out the top five.

Duquesne, Saint Joseph’s, Loyola-Chicago, Rhode Island, and Fordham were choices six through 10, respectively. Richmond, St. Bonaventure, George Mason, George Washington, and Davidson made out the rest of the coaches’ preseason predictions.

Six Billikens landed on the 11-player preseason All-Conference team. Grad student goalkeeper Emily Puricelli, fellow graduate defender Lyndsey Heckel, and senior forward Emily Gaebe made the list after earning first-team All-Conference plaudits in 2023. Puricelli, Heckel, and Gaebe were also the A-10’s Goalkeeper, Defensive Player, and Offensive Player of the Year, respectively.

A pair of 2023 second-team All-Conference choices — graduate defender Sophia Stram and redshirt-senior midfielder/forward Hannah Larson – also garnered preseason All-Conference nods, as did senior forward Hannah Sawyer.

The Billikens will begin the new season on Thursday, when they’ll host a non-conference game against cross-state rival Kansas City (formerly known as UMKC). That game will be played at Hermann Stadium, with opening kick set for 7 p.m.

The matchup will be streamed live on ESPN+.

2024 SLU BILLIKENS WOMEN’S SOCCER SCHEDULE