BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team won its seventh-straight in-state contest on Sunday as the Tigers shutout the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns, 3-0, in a soggy battle at the LSU Soccer Complex.
“It’s always hard to come back and play again after losing your last game, but we found a way to win tonight and that was very good for our team,” said LSU head coach George Fotopoulos. “UL-Lafayette has a talented team this year. They came into this match after defeating Jacksonville, who is ranked in the region and is a national qualifier, and they played us very hard tonight.”
LSU improved to an overall record of 2-1 with the victory while the Ragin’ Cajuns fell to a 1-3 mark on the season. The Tigers also remained undefeated against Louisiana-Lafayette and lead the all-time series, 2-0.
Ashley Mitnick, the Tigers’ junior All-Southeastern Conference selection gave the LSU soccer team an early 1-0 lead in the contest by scoring on a free kick from 30 yards out only 4:21 into the game. With the goal, Mitnick accumulated her third and fourth points of the season. She recorded two assists in the Tigers’ season opener against McNeese State.
“I’m very pleased with the way that we played,” Fotopoulos said. “The field was extremely wet and soggy, but we still created a lot of chances to score and were able to get on the board early on in the game.”
The Tigers’ second goal of the night came at the 25:13 mark in the contest. LSU’s Kara Dean gathered a deflected shot from Artie Brown and fired it into the net from three yards out to give the Tigers a 2-0 advantage. The goal was Dean?s first of the season and the 17th of her career. She led the team with 15 in 2000 and is second on LSU?s all-time goals scored list.
Bonnie Otillio earned her second shutout in three games on Sunday and improved her school-record total to 11.5. The junior is LSU’s career leader in both shutouts and saves.
“Bonnie did an outstanding job for us today,” said Fotopoulos. “She kept us in the game and made some clutch saves early in the second half, and whenever you get good goal-keeping play it’s a lot easier to win the game.”
Freshman Jessica King added the Tigers’ third goal of the evening with 11:49 to play as she broke away from the Ragin’ Cajun defenders and slammed home a shot from five yards out. The goal was the first of her collegiate career and was set up by a beautiful down-field pass from Elizabeth Marschall.
The LSU soccer team will next be in action on Friday, Sept. 14, as the Tigers head to Baltimore, Md., to face the Towson Tigers at 7 p.m. (Central time). The contest will be LSU?s first road match of the season.