The Arkansas Razorbacks will wrap up non-conference play this week.
Arkansas soccer sits at 1-3-1 and welcomes Jackson State to Razorback Field on Friday, Sept. 4. The Tigers come in at 0-4-0.
Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. Fans who can’t make it to Fayetteville can catch the match on SECN+.
Brett Dolan will handle play-by-play duties while Kelly Roliard breaks down the action as analyst.
Jackson State has had a rough start to its season. The Tigers dropped their opener 2-1 to Mercer before falling to ACU, McNeese and ULM in a row.
Goalkeeper Taylor Osborn earned SWAC Preseason Goalkeeper of the Year honors and returns for her second season between the pipes. Three of her teammates also picked up Preseason All-SWAC nods.
Last year the Tigers went 6-1-1 in conference play and reached the SWAC Championship game before losing to Grambling, 2-1.
The Hogs enter this matchup with plenty of momentum. Arkansas picked up its first win and first shutout of the year on Sunday, blasting Little Rock 9-0.
Eight different players found the net that day. Four of them scored their first career goals: Jordan Bryant, MacKenzie Gwin, Kayla Morawietz and Aynsley Nuckols.
Bella Field turned in the first multi-goal game of the season for any Razorback, netting two scores in the third minute alone.
A brutal non-conference gauntlet
Arkansas hasn’t had it easy this fall.
The Razorbacks have faced or will face six ranked opponents this year, including No. 6 Alabama, No. 9 North Carolina, No. 10 Tennessee, No. 21 Florida, No. 22 Baylor and No. 25 Georgia.
The Hogs dropped the North Carolina match 2-0 and fell to Baylor 4-1. Three of Arkansas’ Power Four opponents made last season’s NCAA Tournament, with Clemson reaching the second round and both North Carolina and Baylor advancing to the Sweet 16.
In total, eight of Arkansas’ 2026 opponents played in last year’s tournament field.
Before the season kicked off, the Razorbacks tuned up with a pair of exhibitions.
Arkansas beat Kansas City 3-0 and lost on the road to No. 21 Memphis, 2-0.
Sophomore Vailana Tu’ua scored a brace in a four-minute span during the spring slate, and senior Bella Field added a header of her own five minutes later.
Arkansas played five spring matches overall and outscored its opponents 15-1, which included a 2-0 road win at TCU, a team that reached last year’s College Cup.
Aniyah Nurse-Whyte paced the squad with three goals that spring, and Zoe Susi, Natalie Wagner, Tu’ua and Lauren Van Rhein each chipped in two.
Keegan Smith anchors the back line
Junior goalkeeper Keegan Smith has quickly become one of the top players in program history.
As a freshman in 2024, she tied former Razorback Grace Barbara’s single-season shutout record of 11 and posted the second-lowest goals-against average in program history at .62.
Smith, a native of Bath, New York, shut out seven of Arkansas’ 10 SEC regular-season foes that year and helped push the Hogs to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2022.
She became the first freshman goalkeeper in program history to earn All-SEC recognition and was named to TopDrawerSoccer’s Best XI Freshman Team.
Smith spent part of last offseason training with the U-19 U.S. Women’s National Team in Spain and later joined a combined U-18/19 camp in Georgia.
This season she already has two shutouts, including a 9-save effort at BYU on Sept. 2 that matched her career high.
Arkansas’ recruiting class has also turned heads.
The 2026 group ranked No. 30 nationally in TopDrawerSoccer’s combined class rankings, and three signees landed in the IMG Academy National Top 200: MacKenzie Gwin, Ivy Harding and Lauren Van Rhein.
Home field keeps paying off
Razorback Field remains one of the toughest venues in the sport.
Arkansas is unbeaten in 53 of its last 59 matches there dating back to 2021, posting a 48-6-5 mark since a win over No. 25 BYU that August.
The Hogs have also gone unbeaten in 26 straight SEC home matches since 2020, outscoring opponents 206-50 during that stretch at Razorback Field.
Arkansas enters this season ranked in the top two of a preseason poll for the seventh straight year, sitting at No. 2 behind Vanderbilt.
It’s a stretch that includes the program’s first-ever No. 1 ranking back in 2024, the first for any SEC team since 1998.
The Razorbacks will look to keep that home success going Friday night against a Jackson State team still searching for its first win of the fall.
