BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team fell to 16th-ranked Florida, 3-0, on Friday in a classic battle in which the Tigers held the Gators scoreless for nearly 45 minutes. Florida notched a demoralizing first-half goal with less than a minute to play to take an early lead.
“This team has definitely come a long way in a year,” said LSU head coach George Fotopoulos. “The last time we faced Florida we got beat 11-0, and tonight we competed with them and gave them a good game. We have to enjoy what we’ve done, but it’s still a loss. We just have to put this behind us and get ready for Lafayette on Sunday.”
With the loss the Tigers dropped to an overall record of 1-1 on the season and fell to an 0-1 mark in Southeastern Conference play. Florida improved to 2-1 with the win and earned an early 1-0 record in the conference.
At 44:08 in the first half of play, Florida’s Kelley Visentin gathered a deflection and scored her first of two goals on the night from 10 yards out to give the Gators a key 1-0 lead in the contest.
“The goal right before the half was definitely the turning point in the game,” Fotopoulos said. “If we could have entered the locker room with the score 0-0, our mental state would have been better off. That goal was such a let down for us, especially because they didn’t dominate in the game.”
Early in the second half of play, Visentin scored her second goal of the contest to give the Gators a vital 2-0 lead in the game. Robin Fulton recorded her first assist of the season on the play.
Florida capped off the scoring with 10:33 remaining in the game as the Gators’ senior forward Andi Sellars notched her second goal of the season on a sliding shot into the far side of the net. Christine Johnson picked up the assist on the play.
“Overall we’re going to take a lot from this game and we’re going to have to take the positive with the negative,” said Fotopoulos. “It was respectable, and if you ask Florida, they would say that this was the best LSU team that they have ever played.”
The Tigers’ Artie Brown had LSU’s lone scoring opportunity of the contest on Friday, as she broke through the Gator defense midway through the first half and missed scoring her fourth goal of the season by a mere foot. Her shot angled just wide of Florida’s left post.
With the win, Florida extended its lead to 4-0 in the all-time series and picked up its second victory over the Tigers here in Baton Rouge. LSU’s previous scores against the perennial SEC champions were 7-0, 10-1 and 11-0. The LSU soccer team will resume its non-conference play on Sunday as the Tigers host in-state rival Louisiana-Lafayette at 7 p.m. at the LSU Soccer Complex.
Florida def. LSU, 3-0.
Florida 1 2 – 3
LSU 0 0 – 0
Scoring: Florida, Visentin 44:08, (unassisted), Visentin 47:04 (assist Fulton), Sellars 79:27 (assist Johnson).
Yellow Card: Cohen, LSU, 48:20.