Soccer Outclassed In SEC Opener

After a 1-0 victory over Western Kentucky, LSU ran into a buzzsaw against Texas A&M in College Station to open up SEC play.

On Thursday LSU’s Delaney Sheehan scored the only goal of the contest in the sixth minute when she took Marlena Cutura’s corner kick and headed it home. After that goal, LSU was content to sit back and play thorough defense against a less than powerful Hilltopper attack. Despite WKU holding an advantage over LSU in terms of shots, shots on target, and corners, Western Kentucky never really was able to string together an attack that threatened for the lead. The win extended LSU’s win streak to three and followed wins over Indiana and Butler after bitter losses to George Washington and Colgate.

LSU’s two week road trip ended on Sunday night when they went down to College Station, Texas to kick off SEC Conference competition against #11 Texas A&M. The Aggies were simply a better, more experienced squad than LSU and it showed. The Aggies raced out to a quick advantage just three minutes into the contest when Grace Piper nailed a header into the net on a free kick from about 40 yards out. A&M nearly doubled their lead three minutes after the fact when LSU goalkeeper Carolina Brockmeier came off her line to cut off Aggie forward Haley Pounds after she broke away from the Tiger back line.

LSU was able to hold firm for the rest of the first half, but the floodgates opened up on the other side of halftime. In the 47th minute, A&M went up two after Mikaela Harvey took a chance from the top of the box and buried it in the top left corner of the net. Just short of 70 minutes gone, Texas A&M sealed and locked the contest in their favor when Jordan Hill would take a penalty shot and kiss it off the right post and into the net.

It’s not like LSU didn’t have chances in the game, they did. LSU fired off 12 shots in the game, but only three were on target. And while LSU took 12 shots, A&M took 21 with 11 being on target. And A&M coerced LSU into giving away 10 fouls and seven corner kicks, so LSU spent the entire game behind the eight ball in almost every category.

LSU’s two week road swing is over and they return to Baton Rouge Friday to play Ole Miss in their conference home opener at 7. On Sunday at 1 the Tigers play their final non-conference game against Lamar. Both matches will be broadcast to your internet connected devices on SEC Network+.

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