BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team dropped a tough match to Southeastern Conference rival Ole Miss on Friday, 1-0, in front of a record crowd of 1,689 fans at the LSU Soccer Complex.
LSU falls to 4-4-2 on the season and 0-2-1 in SEC play, while the Rebels improve to 8-3 overall and 2-1 in the conference. Tonight’s attendance eclipsed the old mark of 1,421 fans that witnessed the Tigers shutout Ole Miss, 2-0, on Sept. 8, 1995.
“It was a great crowd and great environment tonight for our players to play in,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “Lee De Leon and the marketing and promotions department did a super job of promoting tonight’s game and getting people to come. It was an entertaining, up-and-down game that, unfortunately, we came up on the short end of.”
Freshman midfielder Jennifer Hance scored the game-winning goal for the Rebels with a header in the seventh minute of the second half on a cross by sophomore midfielder Chrissy Strini. Freshman goalkeeper Jackie Moseley rebounded to save six shots and keep the Rebels scoreless for the rest of the match, but the Tigers were unable to overcome the deficit in the final 38 minutes.
“Ole Miss is a possession-oriented team, and they did that in the second half,” Lee said. “For 45 minutes it was a nice soccer game where the ball got knocked around a lot. We were probably a little flat at the start of the second half, and we lost our shape six times in a row on the back line. On the sixth one, we gave up a corner that led to the goal.”
Ole Miss outshot LSU in the match, 21-7, including seven shots on goal and had four corner kicks to just two for the Tigers. Three yellow cards were issued, and Ole Miss committed 19 fouls to 10 for LSU in a match that was physical throughout.
The Tigers return to the LSU Soccer Complex on Sunday to take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs at 1 p.m. The two teams battled to a scoreless tie in their last meeting on Oct. 3, 2004.
“Mississippi State is a well-coached team. It is not going to be easy to get a win, and we really need a win in the SEC right now,” Lee said. “We’ve got room to improve from tonight’s performance, and we are looking to do that on Sunday.”