BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team continued its dominating play on Friday, as the Tigers’ handily defeated the Louisiana-Monroe Indians, 4-0, at the LSU Soccer Complex.
With the win, the Tigers remained undefeated against in-state opponents for the 12th-consecutive game and upped their winning streak at home against Louisiana rivals to seven-straight games.
“Our defense played really well tonight,” said LSU head coach George Fotopoulos. “They were really organized and I thought that we had a few more scoring chances than we capitalized on, but we were able to score enough to win the game. At this point, all we want to do is to get the win and to stay injury-free, and we were able to do that tonight.”
Coming off of her record tying, four-goal performance on Wednesday, LSU junior Mandy Heintz gave the Tigers a quick 2-0 lead with scores in both the eighth and 11th minutes of the contest. She has eight goals in five games this season and has accounted for more than half of LSU’s goals. Last season, Artie Brown led the Tigers with eight goals on the year.
“Not to jinx her or anything, but Mandy Heintz is playing some unbelievable soccer right now,” Fotopoulos said. “She’s doing what we’re asking her to do. She’s finishing on goals and really spark-plugged the team in the early going tonight.”
With the win, LSU upped its overall record on the season to 4-1 and recorded its third shutout victory. The Tigers have outscored their opponents 15-2 this season and have earned their third-consecutive win. Louisiana-Monroe dropped its fifth-straight match of the 2002 dual season and owns a winless 0-5 record.
Brown, the Tigers’ speedy sophomore standout from University High School, added the third goal of the contest as she broke between two defenders, gathered a pass from Stephanie Keating and knocked the ball off of the goaltender into the net. On the play, Brown recorded her first goal of the season and Keating notched her second assist of the game. Keating also earned an assist on Heintz’ first goal of the evening.
“I was really happy to see Artie (Brown) score her goal,” said Fotopoulos. “She played really well on the offensive end for us and if we can get both her and Mandy in sync together, then it will be really good for us. I also thought that Stephanie Keating played really well tonight. She really did a good job playing the outside flank and she gave us some good chances to score.”
The fourth-and-final goal of LSU’s victory came in the 65th minute of the game as Keating rifled a direct kick past the unsuspecting keeper and into the left-hand corner of the net. The score from 25 yards out was Keating’s second on the season and upped her overall point total to six.
LSU controlled the game from the opening kick and outshot the Indians 31-6.
The LSU soccer team will next be in action on Sunday, Sept. 15, as the Tigers play host to the Nicholls State Lady Colonels at 2 p.m. at the LSU Soccer Complex.
The game is being tabbed as “Coca Cola and Winn Dixie Soccer Mom Sunday” where soccer moms and dads will have a chance to win an SUV. The LSU marketing staff will also give away soccer ball keychains to the first 100 soccer moms in attendance.
LSU (4-1) def. Louisiana-Monroe (0-5), 4-0
ULM 0 0 – 0
LSU 3 1 – 4
Scoring: LSU, Heintz (7) 7:49 (assist Keating), Heintz (8) 10:47 (assist Mitnick), Brown (1) 31:44 (assist Keating), Keating (2) 64:32 (unassisted).
Yellow Cards: Nichole Nichols (1) 64:30.