BATON ROUGE — The LSU Soccer team came up short against Kentucky in the SEC opener Friday in front the fourth largest crowd ever at the LSU Soccer Complex, 2-0.
The largest crowd to see a game was 1,421 on Sept. 8, 1995 against Ole Miss. The attendance of 781 was the largest crowd to see a game this season at the LSU Soccer Complex.
LSU (5-4-0, 0-1 SEC) is now 0-8 all-time against Kentucky (4-4-0, 1-0 SEC). The Tigers out shot Kentucky 14-11, but LSU was unable to get anything in the goal. Sophomore Stacy Bishop and freshman Caroline Vanderpool both had four shots each, while junior Kate Ripple had three shots in the game.
“Playing a tough out of conference schedule has really helped us as we were able to be very competitive with Kentucky,” said LSU co-head coach George Fotopoulos. “Kentucky is one of the best teams in the conference and we were able to play tough and be competitive. That’s really what our goal was to come out and be competitive and have a chance to win.”
The first goal of the game came in the 11th minute as Jen Weakley of Kentucky took the cross from Kristen Jedlo and put it just past Tiger goalkeeper Robyn DesOrmeaux. Weakley would score again in the 18th minute on a ball that deflected off of a Tiger defender into the goal.
“I think the two early goals really hurt us tremendously,” said Fotopoulos. “We weren’t able to recover after that.”
The second half would get very physical as there were 16 fouls and two cautions. LSU would create a couple scoring opportunities the second half, but the Wildcat defense would stop the Tiger pressure.
“We are still looking to continue to get organized and disciplined and do things a little bit better,” said Fotopoulos. We weren’t organized and disciplined in the first 20 minutes and it cost us two goals and we weren’t able to recover after that. Those are the types of things we need to do if we need to do better if we are going to be successful in the conference.”
LSU will continue conference play this Sunday, Sept. 26 at 2 p.m. (CST) against Vanderbilt at the LSU Soccer Complex. The Tigers will go on the road the following weekend to Ole Miss on Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. and Mississippi State on Oct. 3 at 1 p.m.
Kentucky (3-4-0) defeated LSU (5-3-0), 2-0
UK 2 0 – 2
LSU 0 0 – 0
Scoring: Kentucky, Weakley (3) (assist Jedlo) 10:06, Weakley (4) (assist Haeussler) 17:23
Yellow Cards: LSU, Tara Mitnick (1) 88:07 Kentucky, Kristin Moyer (1) 51:45
Attendance: 781