BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team officially inked its third highly touted recruit of the spring signing period on Tuesday, as the Tiger coaching staff announced the signing of Mandeville High School standout Leigh Culpepper.
“We are very ecstatic to announce that Leigh will be a member of our team next season,” said LSU head coach George Fotopoulos. “We feel that in order to continue to improve as a program, we need to keep getting the best players from the state of Louisiana to come to LSU, and Leigh is definitely one of the top players in the state and we’re happy to have her on the team.”
Culpepper, a three sport athlete at Mandeville High School, will join the LSU soccer team in the fall of 2002 and is expected to play either fullback or midfield. She was a very decorated soccer player during her high school career and led the Skippers to two consecutive district championships and the Louisiana state finals in both 1999 and 2000.
In club soccer, Culpepper competed for the U17 New Orleans Soccer Academy and helped guide the team to the 2000 Top Gun championship, the 2000 Atlanta Cup championship and the semifinals of the Raleigh ShootOut. She also earned the Mandeville High School Academic Achievement Award and was named to the honor roll in each of her first three years of high school.
“We feel that Leigh will definitely be a plus for our program,” Fotopoulos said. “Not only is she an extremely talented soccer player, but she brings an outstanding amount of academic intensity to the table as well.”
Culpepper chose to attend LSU over Florida State, Ole Miss, Florida and Spring Hill.
The LSU soccer team will open its 2002 season on Aug. 31, as the Tigers travel to Nacogdoches, Texas, for a non-conference contest against Stephen F. Austin at 1 p.m.