BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team overcame a sluggish first half of play on Sunday to defeat the Auburn-Montgomery Senators, 4-1, at the LSU Soccer Complex. The Tigers’ four goals were all scored in the final 20 minutes of action.
“Well, the positive thing about this game was that we were able to come back and win,” said LSU assistant coach Tracy Hay. Head coach George Fotopoulos was unavailable for comment. “We were able to come away with a victory, but on the negative side of things, we played very flat today. And whenever you play flat, you’re going to get scored on. We need to learn how to play hard every minute whether we’re playing Auburn-Montgomery or Auburn.”
With the score knotted at 1-1, LSU’s Rachel Cohen angled a shot into the far corner of the net at the 73:22 mark in the contest to earn the game-winning goal. Freshman Danielle Keath was awarded the assist on the play after sending a beautiful crossing pass to the front of the goal.
Cohen’s game-winning shot came only 37 seconds after the Tigers’ Jennifer Craig scored the team’s opening goal of the game. The scores are the second-closest goals scored in LSU history. Last season, the Tigers scored twice in 14 seconds to upend Alabama, 2-1.
Craig, a highly-touted freshman from Burnaby, Canada, recorded the Tigers’ opening score of the afternoon as she rifled a shot past the keeper from 20-yards out. Cohen was attributed with the assist on the play, her first of three on Sunday. Craig later added LSU’s final goal of the match on a 10-yard shot into the upper-left corner of the net.
With the win, the Tigers improved to an overall record of 4-2 on the season, while Auburn-Montgomery dropped to 3-6. LSU remained undefeated against non-conference opponents at the LSU Soccer Complex and earned its second-straight victory. The Senators lost their second game in a row and head to Dahlonega, Ga., for a match against North Georgia College.
Auburn-Montgomery jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in Sunday’s contest as sophomore Paige Gaston scored her fourth goal of the season with 3:34 remaining in the first half. Amanda Johnston recorded her fourth assist of the season on the play.
Keath, LSU’s talented freshman from Melbourne, Fla., earned both her first career goal and her first career assist on Sunday. With 7:15 left in the match, she took a Cohen pass and broke away from the defense to score LSU’s third goal of the game. She recorded her first assist as an LSU Tiger on Cohen’s score.
The LSU soccer team will next be in action on Wednesday, Sept. 26, as the Tigers travel to Monroe, La., to face the Louisiana-Monroe Indians at 7 p.m.