BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team followed the goal keeping efforts of sophomore Bonnie Otillio and depended on the lone goal of freshman Elizabeth Marschall to shutout the Arkansas Lady’backs, 1-0, and pick up its first Southeastern Conference victory of the season Sunday afternoon at the LSU Soccer Complex.
“Going into this SEC match, I think the girls wanted to know how good they were,” said head coach George Fotopoulos. “I think this game showed them that on any given day we can win or lose, but at least we can be competitive. That’s what we were today and luckily we got a win.”
The Tigers improve to 8-1 on the season and 1-0 in Southeastern Conference play. This is the Tigers’ first SEC win since Sept. 12, 1999, when LSU beat Ole Miss, 2-1.
Arkansas falls to 2-5-2 overall and 0-1 in SEC play.
The game-winning goal for the Tigers was scored by freshman Marschall on a header into the net off a corner kick by sophomore Ashley Mitnick in the 30th minute.
Marschall now has four goals for the season and is tied her for second in goals with fellow freshman Rachel Cohen. Mitnick leads the team with four assists.
The LSU defense picked up its fifth shutout of the year following the leadership of goalie Bonnie Otillio and defender Abby Atwell. Otillio had four saves for the afternoon and now has 3 1/2 shutouts to her name.
“Arkansas had several chances to score today,” said Fotopoulos. “I take my hat off to our goalie Bonnie Otillio and our defenders Abby Atwell and Ashley Mitnick for their tremendous defensive efforts. Those three players made the difference today for us.”
The five Tiger shutouts this season matches the five of the 1998 LSU squad, which is second best in school history.
LSU and Arkansas kept up with each other offensively with LSU taking 10 shots and Arkansas nine. Lady’back goalie Lindsay Haywood had six saves.
The Tigers head to Lafayette, La., on Tuesday night to face a first-year soccer program, Louisiana-Lafayette, at 4 p.m. before heading to Ole Miss on Friday night and Mississippi State on Sunday for two big SEC Western Division matches.