BROOKINGS — South Dakota State soccer will open up the regular season tonight at Fishback Soccer Park against the Kansas Jayhawks at 7 p.m. and the Jackrabbits are hoping to continue their streak of successful seasons that have built them into one of the better soccer programs in the country.

SDSU is coming off of its 11th consecutive season with double-digit victories as the Jackrabbits went 13-4-3 last season. They won the Summit League Tournament for the third time in the past five seasons and made their way back to the NCAA Tournament where they fell 5-2 to Nebraska.

As the Jacks make their season debut on Thursday night, head coach Brock Thompson said he’s looking forward to having a lot of depth coming into the season.

“I love this team a lot,” Thompson said. “I think we’re deep. I think we’re pretty diverse in how we play and the strengths on the team. I think the biggest challenge when you’re deep is how do you use that depth to your advantage and how do you define roles? That’s what will really come out in the next couple of weeks.”

SDSU returns 10 players that started at least one match a season ago and five of them started in multiple contests. The top returners include seniors Avery and Laney Murdzek and graduate senior Kaycee Manding. Avery Murdzek and Manding were each named to the All-Summit League First Team a season ago and Manding was named the Summit League Midfielder of the Year. Laney Murdzek was named to the All-Summit League Second Team in 2023.

Manding is part of a group of five players that will be utilizing their fifth year of eligibility. The others include midfielder Katherine Jones, defenseman Hayley Lindaman and forwards Avery LeBlanc and Jenna Hallen. Jones was the Summit League Tournament MVP last season and was named to the 2024 Summit League Players to Watch list on Tuesday.

Thompson said his excitement starts with the likes of Manding, Jones and the Murdzek’s, but he’s really excited about the roster as a whole and how he’s going to piece together the starting lineup and rotations.

“We lost four starters to injury last year and we got two of those [players] back,” Thompson said. “So, you combine those with the players that were able to fill in down the stretch, I think it’s really a recipe for a lot of capable players that have had experience in big games. How you put those pieces together will hopefully lead to a really fun and entertaining team.

“With Kaycee Manding and Avery Murdzek, they were voted top 25 players at their position across the country, so the talent level that they’ve been able to play at over the years is special, but our team is special beyond that. Laney Murdzek and Katherine Jones and a number of other experienced players [are back] and there are some newcomers that have come into the program too. Putting it together will be the challenge, but the potential is exciting.”

Avery Murdzek led the Jacks in goals last season with eight and she tied the team-high in assists with five. Sophomore forward Katelyn Beulke was tied for second in goals with five and Jones had three goals and three assists. Manding led SDSU in minutes played with 1,667.

At goalkeeper, SDSU lost Jocelyn Tanner, who was a two-time Summit League Goalkeeper of the Year. Tanner started in all but one game for the Jacks and sophomore Emma Knack got the only other start. Knack had two saves last season and appeared in four games. Junior Mia Wildeman and freshman Stephanie Leckwold are the other two goalkeepers.

SDSU will hit the road after it plays Kansas. The Jacks will travel to Colorado to take on Northern Colorado and Colorado College before playing at Wyoming. They will conclude their road trip playing at Western Illinois and Green Bay. SDSU then plays home games against Drake and Wayne State before finishing up the non-conference portion of the schedule visiting Oregon State and hosting University of South Carolina Upstate.

Thompson said playing six road games in the non-conference will help his team for a Summit League schedule that pairs them up against each team in the conference just one time.

“[The non-conference schedule] will do a great job of preparing us for Summit League play,” Thompson said. “... We’ll play a team from the Big 12 in Kansas. I’ll say a team from the Pac-12 in Oregon State and a number of Mountain West schools. It seems like we play Drake every year and it feels like a conference game even though it isn’t.

“Once the Summit League season hits you start to feel like a football coach because you have eight games to find yourself in the top six to advance to the conference tournament. Every match has such high magnitude and it’s a really fun part of the season.”

SDSU has made the NCAA Tournament three times under Thompson and six times as a program. The Jacks RPI over the past two seasons, which rates your program nationally based on the quality of wins and losses, has been 59th and 62nd. SDSU has yet to win an NCAA Tournament game and Thompson said he doesn’t like to put a goal like that out there. He just wants his program to continue to get better in ways that aren’t measured by wins and losses.

“Our whole mindset is just to grow, and I think as you grow you don’t necessarily limit or come up with an arbitrary goal. Our players that have poured their heart and soul into the program over the past few years have elevated this program and are motivated to continue to do that. Athletics, and soccer specifically, are pretty fickle. A ball can go in or not go in and it ends up being a tie. But I know this, this team is confident regardless who they play against and that’s a really good place to be as a program,” Thompson said.