BATON ROUGE — Four different players scored goals for the Tigers as the LSU soccer team extended its school record home unbeaten streak to 13 games with a dominating 4-1 win over the 25th-ranked BYU Cougars on Monday night at the LSU Soccer Complex.
The meeting marked the first between the two schools on the soccer pitch as the Tigers improved to 2-0 on the young season, while the Cougars dropped to 1-1.
“It was a great game. We just started t wear them down in the second half,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “On our night, we can really go forward. BYU is a program that is consistently in the NCAA Tournament, and I think it’s a great challenge for us to continue to play well against well-coached teams like this. We have a lot of respect for their program.”
After the Tigers had taken a 2-1 lead into the halftime locker room, freshman goalkeeper Mo Isom shocked everyone in attendance just seven minutes after the break as she drilled a 90-yard free kick (Video) into the BYU net to give the Tigers a two-goal lead.
With BYU goalkeeper McKenzie Olson coming off her line to defend LSU’s pressing front line, the ball took one bounce over her head and into the net.
“I’m in shock right now. I was not expecting to do that at all when I took that free kick,” Isom said. “I felt the (BYU) goal in the first half was my fault. That just gave me the momentum, and I kicked that one with everything I had. I’ve never done anything like that before.”
Isom was not the only Tiger to impress on the night. Junior midfielder Michelle Makasini put the Tigers on top right out of the gate with her first goal of the season in the sixth minute. Fellow junior Malorie Rutledge beat BYU defender Nicole Urry one-on-one in the right side of the area before centering a pass to Makasini, who rifled a shot into the net from inside the six-yard box.
Junior Melissa Clarke pushed the LSU advantage to 2-0 in the 26th minute of play with her first goal of the season after gathering a pass from junior Rachel Yepez and blasting a shot inside the near post from the top of the 18-yard box directly in front of the goal.
BYU pulled one back before the halftime break when Cougar forward Alyssa Vander Veur cut the lead in half with a header into the back of the net off a corner kick from Ashleigh Jameson.
But that was not enough to slow down the LSU attack as Tiger senior Roslyn Jones capped the Tigers’ win with a goal in the 68th minute of play, controlling a flick into the area by Makasini and heading a shot over the outstretched fingertips of Olson.
With the two teams trading possession for much of the first half, the Tigers controlled play on the offensive end of the field in the second half as they finished the match with 17 total shots and 11 shots on goal with eight corner kicks. The Cougars recorded 10 shots with just five shots on goal and five corner kicks.
It turned out to be an outstanding night of soccer at the LSU Soccer Complex after the match was originally in doubt with the remnants of Hurricane Fay dumping a day’s worth of rain on the field on Sunday and through the early afternoon on Monday.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better field to play on considering the torrential downpour we had here over the last day or two,” Lee said. “David Hadsky and his grounds crew did an outstanding job of getting the field ready to play, and you would have never known that we had that kind of weather hit the field. We appreciate them for all of their hard work today.”
After wrapping up the first weekend of the season a perfect 2-0, the Tigers return to the pitch on Saturday night as they travel to Evanston, Ill., to take on the Northwestern Wildcats in the first round of the Lakeside Invitational at Lakeside Field. They will then follow with a match against Loyola-Chicago in the tournament finale on Monday at 6 p.m.