BATON ROUGE- The LSU soccer team dug itself into an early hole it couldn’t recover from Thursday night, surrendering three first half goals and ultimately dropping a 4-2 decision to South Alabama at the LSU Soccer Complex.
The loss extended LSU’s (4-14-1) winless streak to 12 matches, while South Alabama (11-5-1) took a 3-2 lead in the all-time series between the two schools.
“Early mistakes just killed us again, it’s the same old story,” said LSU head coach Greg Boggs. “Their forwards put a lot of pressure on us right off the bat and they jumped on us early. We fought back and had some opportunities, but you can’t fall behind 3-0 and expect to come back at this level.”
Cassie Price took a feed from Kristen Hunt just six minutes into the match and sent a shot past LSU goalkeeper Sara Krupa to the top right corner of the net before either team had broken a sweat.
Just over a minute later South Alabama caught the Tigers napping again when Cindy Rainville scored the first of her two goals on the night, taking a feed from Linda Larsson and placing the ball underneath Krupa for a 2-0 lead.
LSU had an opportunity to cut the Jaguar lead in half in the 15th minute, but Mandy Heintz missed an empty net chance, hitting the ball off the left post.
The teams battled back and forth until the 25th minute when Rainville collected her second goal of the match on a beautifully placed 20-foot rocket.
LSU climbed back into the match just before the end of the first half. Laura Prichard sent a cross from the far left side of the field to an on-charging Leigh McGovern who buried it home from 7-yards out to make it 3-1 at the half.
Prichard got the Tigers within a goal in the 52nd minute, as the Tigers began to take control of the match. Katie Thomas sent a cross to the goal box from the far left side of the field that Prichard was able to get a head on and place the ball past Jaguar keeper Kyla Rogers.
It looked like Prichard got the equalizer in the 61st minute, but the linesman ruled her offsides, negating the tying goal for the Tigers.
Larsson ended the Tiger comeback in the 78th minute, placing a perfect 20-yard shot past Krupa for her 19th goal of the season to make it a 4-2 game.
LSU wraps up its 1999 season on Sunday afternoon when 17th-ranked SMU comes to the LSU Soccer Complex for a 2 p.m. match.