To borrow the iconic words of John Ward – and indeed it is football time in Tennessee – August also means the start of fall sports with the Lady Vols soccer team getting on the field first.
Last year’s team was beset with season-ending injuries to players it could least afford to lose, including Jaida Thomas, who suffered the third major knee injury of her career. Thomas had used a redshirt year as a freshman after a second ACL tear in high school forced the forward from Dallas to the sideline to fully heal to start her college career. That was followed by three stellar seasons at Tennessee as Thomas closed in on the record for most goals by a Lady Vol.
Thomas played just two games as a redshirt senior – her homecoming game against SMU in Dallas and a home match in which she scored a goal against Indiana. A torn ACL ended her 2023 season, and Thomas had a decision to make in 2024. Should she come back for the extra year the NCAA granted athletes who played during the pandemic even if meant a sixth year in college?
The answer would be yes, and she announced the news earlier this year on social media. “Thank you to everybody who showed me support this past season with my season-ending injury. The love and support shown by my coaches, teammates, family and community has truly helped me during this season of life. I’m so thankful to God for allowing me to continue to play the sport I love. With that being said, I’m excited to announce my return for the 2024 season! I have some unfinished business!”
Part of that unfinished business would be trying to become the all-time leader at Tennessee in goals scored.
Kylee Rossi, who played at Tennessee from 2004-08, is the current record holder with 43 goals. Thomas has 39 goals and needs four to tie and five to break it.
If Thomas breaks the record, it won’t be because she played a lot more games. It’s quite the opposite. The third ACL tear robbed Thomas of nearly all of her senior season. Her first college season was played amid a pandemic and included just 15 games split between the fall and spring. Rossi posted the record in 87 games. Thomas has 39 goals in 59 games. If she becomes the new record holder it will be in decidedly fewer games.
Jaida Thomas points during promo photos at media day in 2024. (UT Athletics)
One ACL tear is brutal. Two is devastating. A third is just cruel for an athlete.
“My time being out I just learned to enjoy every moment and to take advantage of where I’m at right now,” Thomas said in August before the 2024 season started. “To just be in the Lord’s presence was something I focused on a lot. It was mentally hard for me.”
Tennessee opened the season Thursday night on the road at Indiana and fell 1-0 with seven shots on goal to 10 by the Hoosiers.
The soccer team will make its home debut this Sunday, August 18, at 6 p.m. against Chattanooga at Regal Soccer Stadium. The Lady Vols have 17 newcomers with 10 freshman and seven transfers, so print a roster or grab a program.
The 2024 SEC Preseason Watchlist includes Thomas; Mac Midgley, a junior midfielder from Wolverine Lake, Michigan; Kate Runyon, a sophomore forward from Westminster, Colorado; and Sammi Woods, a graduate student forward from Saline, Michigan, all of whom are returners.
Also of note is Nyla Blue, a freshman defender from Knoxville who won a state championship at Bearden High School and earned All-American honors. She is the daughter of Avery and Kristen Blue, and her mother, then known as Kristen “Ace” Clement, played for the late Pat Summitt from 1997-2001 and won a national title in 1998.
A lengthy story about Blue’s commitment to Tennessee in 2022 can be read HERE.
The volleyball team gets started next with a loaded regular season schedule that starts with Penn State in Knoxville on Friday, Aug. 30, at 6 p.m. with a broadcast on ESPNU and then a road match at Louisville on Sunday, Sept. 1, at 4 p.m. on ESPN2.
Anyone wanting to get an earlier look can watch the Orange & White Scrimmage on Tuesday, Aug. 20, at 6 p.m. and an exhibition against Lipscomb on Friday, Aug. 23. Both matches are at home.
Tennessee made it to the Elite Eight in 2023 and nearly toppled eventual national champion Texas for a berth in the Final Four. Four starters from that team have departed, and the Lady Vols will lean on All-American sophomore setter Caroline Kerr and junior middle blocker Keondreya “Kiki” Granberry.
Nine newcomers have arrived with four transfers and five freshmen. Outside hitters Nina Cajic and Hayden Kubik will help ease the graduation of Morgahn Fingall and Jenaisya Moore.
Keondreya “Kiki” Granberry and Caroline Kerr celebrate during the 2023 season. (UT Athletics)
The cross country team has a new coach in Justin Duncan who will try to keep the success going for the Lady Vols. Tennessee seized a sixth-place finish at the 2023 NCAA Cross Country Championships, the program’s best since also finishing sixth in 1989. The season starts Sept. 1 in Knoxville at the Cherokee Farm Cross Country Course. Among the returnees is Ashley Jones, whose inspirational story can be read HERE.
The golf team opens the fall season on the road on Sept. 9 at the Cougar Classic hosted by the College of Charleston. Tennis also starts on the road at the H-E-B Invitational on Sept. 28 in Waco, Texas, and will seek to keep the momentum after a spring season that saw Alison Ojeda named the 2024 National Wilson Intercollegiate Tennis Association Coach of the Year after the team reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 2010.
Softball will have fall ball, a series of exhibition games that don’t count but allow teams – and fans – to see live competition. The first one is Sept. 28 against Lipscomb. The full eight-game schedule is available HERE and includes a home and away game against Kentucky.
Sports at Tennessee are thriving. Don’t miss any of them.
Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press.