BATON ROUGE — The 14th-ranked LSU soccer team is set to play in the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row and will travel to the Aggie Soccer Stadium in College Station, Texas, to take on 22nd-ranked Washington in the first round Friday at 4 p.m. CT.
This marks the first ever meeting between the two sides as the Tigers (14-3-2) and Huskies (15-4-1) have never faced one another on the soccer pitch in the history of their respective programs.
Like LSU, Washington received an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament as the club will make its first postseason appearance since 2004 when it advanced to the Elite Eight. The Huskies are on a six-game unbeaten streak entering postseason play as they tied the defending national champion USC Trojans for the No. 3 spot in the Pac-10 standings with a 5-3-1 mark in league play.
Friday’s match between LSU and Washington is sure to be one of the most intriguing matches of the opening round as the Tigers are ranked as high as No. 14 in the this week’s national rankings, while the Huskies are ranked as high as No. 22 nationally heading into the postseason.
The No. 3 seeded Texas A&M Aggies will play host to the College Station regional and is set to battle Texas State in their opening round match on Friday at 7 p.m.
“This is an exciting time for our program, and I’m proud of this team for what it has been able to achieve to this point in the season,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “We’ve worked hard all year long to put ourselves in this position to compete in the NCAA Tournament. We’ve certainly got a challenge ahead of us, but we look forward to playing a team like Washington in the first round.”
The Tigers have experience on their side after advancing to the second round of the tournament in their first appearance a year ago. LSU picked up its first postseason victory with a thrilling 1-0 double-overtime win over Samford in the opening round of the Tallahassee, Fla., regional.
The squad received an at-large bid after winning its second-straight SEC Western Division crown and advancing to the semifinal round of last week’s SEC Tournament as the No. 2 seed. LSU has played a total of seven matches against teams in the NCAA Tournament with a 3-2-2 mark.
It proved to be another historic season for the program as the Tigers earned their highest finish on the SEC table while setting a school record for wins in SEC play with a 7-3-1 mark and 22 points.
“It’s certainly a benefit to have a little bit of experience when playing in the NCAA Tournament,” Lee said. “We’re a more experienced team now than in recent years, and these kids have worked very hard to get back into the postseason to see if they can improve on what they accomplished a year ago. This is a program that is getting better year to year, and a big goal for us is seeing if we can take that next step. We have a very tough test to start with on Friday night.”
The Huskies are one of the hottest teams in the country entering the postseason as they are riding a six-game unbeaten streak in Pac-10 play that includes a pair of 2-1 wins over Arizona State and Arizona this past weekend. Their last defeat was to national power Stanford back on Oct. 17.
Junior forward Veronica Perez leads the Washington attack after finishing the regular season with a team-leading 12 goals and 29 points to rank among the top scorers in the Pac-10.
LSU will counter with a potent offensive attack of its own led by the SEC Offensive Player of the Year and First-Team All-SEC selection Malorie Rutledge, who has proven to be one top attackers in the country this season while scoring eight goals and recording 18 assists for 34 points. She is a true Hermann Trophy candidate after being named to the award’s watch list during the preseason.
Rutledge is the top point scorer in the SEC this season, and her 18 assists ranks No. 2 all-time in a single season in the league history. What’s even more impressive is that Rutledge either scored or assisted the game-winning goal in each of LSU’s seven wins in conference play this year.
Two other Tigers have matched Rutledge’s eight goals this year as senior Roslyn Jones and junior Rachel Yepez have given LSU a devastating 1-2 punch up top in 2008.
Not only do the Tigers feature one of the SEC’s top offensive attacks this season, but they are one of the top defensive teams this season as freshman goalkeeper Mo Isom has played every minute in goal during her rookie campaign. Isom boasts a league-leading and single-season school record 0.72 goals against average as LSU has outscored its opponents 47-14 this fall.
“We’re looking forward to a great game between two outstanding teams,” Lee said. “We’ll face a team that is very well-coached and will be well-prepared when we kick it off tomorrow night. Playing in games like this is what we’ve worked so hard for all season long.”
The winner of Friday’s match between LSU and Washington will face the winner of Texas A&M and Texas State in the second round on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. The champion of the College Station regional will advance next weekend’s Sweet 16, while the NCAA quarterfinal is scheduled to run from Nov. 28-30 followed by the 2008 NCAA Women’s College Cup from Dec. 5-7.