Sam Houston State tabs Kendall Ayers to lead women’s soccer program

HUNTSVILLE — Kendall Ayers has been named the new Sam Houston State University women’s soccer coach, the athletic department announced.

Ayers, who spent the past season at Texas Southern, is the fourth head coach in the Bearkat program’s history. She replaces Sonia Curvelo who became the head coach at San Jose State in March.

In her first and only season at Texas Southern, Ayers guided the Tigers to the program’s first Southwestern Athletic Conference regular season championship and the championship game of the league’s postseason tournament in 2024. She was named the SWAC Coach of the Year and developed the Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year.

The Tigers went 9-9-2 overall and 6-1-1 in conference play. Texas Southern beat Prairie View and Alabama A&M to reach the finals of the SWAC Tournament where it fell to Southern 1-0 in the title game.

Prior to Texas Southern, spent two seasons as the head coach at Louisiana Christian University, where she led the squad to an 18-10-4 record. The all-time winningest head coach in school history, Ayers took the Wildcats to postseason play in both seasons and had three student-athletes receive All-Red River Athletic Conference accolades.

Ayers also spent two seasons (2021-22) as an assistant at Navarro College in Corsicana. The Bastrop native began her playing career at Cisco College helping the Lady Wranglers become Region 5 conference champions and district finalists in 2013. Predominantly a defensive player, while at Cisco she scored 12 goals, including three game-winners, and had 15 assists on the way to being named to the 2013 NSCAA Junior College Division I All-West Region Team.

Ayers is no stranger to Conference USA, having closed her playing career with two seasons at Louisiana Tech. After graduation, Ayers spent two years playing professionally in Greece where she also served as the sports psychologist for the AO Trikala professional men’s soccer team and head goalkeeper coach for the Ambilakia club team.