BATON ROUGE — The 24th-ranked LSU soccer team continues its four-game SEC road swing this weekend as it travels to Nashville, Tenn., on Friday to take on the Vanderbilt Commodores at 7 p.m. at the Vanderbilt Soccer Complex.
The Tigers (9-2-4, 3-1-2 SEC) are looking for their second straight win in conference play after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide by a 2-1 margin in Tuscaloosa on Sunday afternoon.
With the win, the Tigers moved into sole possession of fourth place in the conference standings at 11 points, trailing only Georgia (16), Auburn (15) and Tennessee (13) in the race for the regular season title. LSU has never finished higher than eighth place in the SEC in team history.
Vanderbilt (4-7-2, 1-3-1 SEC) dropped a pair of matches to ranked opponents last weekend after falling to No. 20 Georgia, 3-2, in overtime on Friday and No. 14 Tennessee, 3-1, on Sunday. The Commodores own a 7-1-2 advantage in the all-time series with the Tigers as the sides battled to a 1-1 draw in Baton Rouge in their last meeting on Sept. 22, 2006.
“Vanderbilt is a good team, but they’re just young right now,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “They’re going to be extremely organized when we kick it off tomorrow night. They’re well-coached, and we’re going to have to be at our best if we hope to leave Nashville with a win.”
Despite their struggles in the early part of the conference season, the Commodores are no stranger to success as they have advanced to the NCAA Tournament in each of the last two seasons.
Freshman Molly Kinsella was one of the jewels of a recruiting ranked No. 9 in the country by Soccer Buzz Magazine in the spring and is currently the team’s leading scorer with five goals and 13 points. The side also features All-SEC standouts Amy Baumann and Sarah Dennis.
“You can tell just by watching the tape that Vanderbilt is a talented team. The results just haven’t fallen their way in a lot of matches this year,” Lee said. “They signed a recruiting class among the top 10 in the country last year, and they’ve been to the NCAA Tournament the last few seasons. Ronnie (Coveleskie) has done a great job of building that program into what it is today.”
After battling Vanderbilt on Friday night, the Tigers wrap up their four-game SEC road trip by making the trip to Lexington, Ky., on Sunday afternoon to take on the Kentucky Wildcats (6-6-2, 0-6-0 SEC) in a match scheduled for a noon CDT kickoff at the UK Soccer Complex.