BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team will put its four-game winning streak on the line Monday when it travels to Birmingham, Ala., to face the Birmingham-Southern Panthers of the Big South Conference at the BSC Soccer Park at 5 p.m.
This marks the first meeting between the two schools, and LSU head coach Brian Lee believes that BSC (4-3-0) presents a formidable challenge for his team as it prepares for the start of Southeastern Conference play next weekend.
“Birmingham Southern will be a very well-coached, well-organized defensive team on Monday,” Lee said. “They have an NCAA pedigree, and we expect them to be a good challenge. This is certainly a team we cannot overlook heading into next weekend.”
The Tigers (4-2-0) are coming off a 2-1 win over in-state opponent McNeese State on Tuesday and have won four-straight matches for the first time since the start of the 2004 season.
Senior Kate Ripple has become an immediate scoring threat for LSU since being moved from midfielder to forward in the Tigers’ new 4-3-3 alignment as she has scored all three of her goals this season in the last two matches. Junior forward Joleen Phillips continues to lead the team with four goals and 10 points on the season.
Lee said he has been pleased with the defensive effort of his team this season and that the Tigers must continue to improve in that area if they hope to find success in the SEC. LSU is holding its opponents to just 8.5 shots and 0.84 goals per match this season, including 4.75 shots and 0.25 goals per match during its current four-game winning streak.
“We feel really good where we’re at defensively, and we’re just continuing to try and make progress in the attacking third and giving ourselves more chances on goal,” Lee said. “We’ve done that in the last couple of games, and hopefully we will take another step forward as we head into SEC play.”
The Tigers open SEC play next weekend with road matches at Kentucky on Friday at 6:30 p.m. and at Vanderbilt on Sunday at 1 p.m.