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If you were thinking that something nice happened to LSU athletics over the weekend, I have some bad news. LSU soccer dropped both of their road SEC matches, against #8 South Carolina 3-1 and Vanderbilt 3-0.
It’s hard to bemoan a road loss against the #8 team in the nation, but they took a tie game into halftime off of Summer Clarke pulling the Gamecock goalkeeper off her line. South Carolina opened the scoring in the 10th minute with a Savannah McCaskill cracker from the top of the box.
LSU held firm up until the 20 to play mark, where the pressure from South Carolina’s attack got the best of them. A well-placed through ball to the left side of the penalty box that Chelsea Drennan converted to pull the Gamecocks ahead. South Carolina sealed the victory 72 seconds later when Sophie Groff converted a penalty following the Tigers fouling McCaskill in the penalty area.
While LSU was just outplayed against a better team against South Carolina, Sunday against Vanderbilt was just a bad showing. LSU fell down in the contest in the 23rd minute when Grace Jackson headed home a cross into the back post. Just before the half hour mark, the Commodores braced their lead after LSU blew their lines and a loose ball was poked into the net by Hannon Eberts.
LSU nearly cut the lead before halftime when she broke free of her mark in the box and fired a diving shot that was punched away by the Vanderbilt goalkeeper Kaitlyn Fahrner. Cristina De Zeeuw tripled Vanderbilt’s lead on the other side of halftime when she headed a corner kick in the 59th minute.
All told, Vanderbilt really didn’t have that many chances or rip LSU apart. In fact, LSU had more shots than Vanderbilt, 13 to 10, and forced eight saves from Fahrner. Vanderbilt just converted whatever chances they did have. Sometimes you have those kind of days in soccer.
LSU is currently sitting at 10th in the SEC standings at 1-3-0, meaning as of right now they would have the last spot in the SEC Tournament. That’s still a long ways away and there is quite a bit of soccer left to play, but LSU needs to kick it into high gear sooner rather than later.
LSU hosts Florida on Friday night at 7:00 and then is off for nearly a week, with the next game after being a home game against Tennessee on October 6th. The game Friday will not be broadcast on any video platform.
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