BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team will kick off the 2009 Duke Nike Classic on Friday with a match against the defending national champion and No. 1-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels that is slated to kick off at 4 p.m. CT at Koskinen Stadium on the campus of Duke University.
This marks LSU’s first ever meeting with the Tar Heels and the first time that the Tigers will take on the top-ranked team in the country in program history.
North Carolina women’s soccer is arguably the most successful program in all of collegiate athletics with a total of 19 national championships to its credit. The Tar Heels return eight starters from a team that won its 19th title in 2008 with a 2-1 win over Notre Dame in the national championship game.
The Tar Heels (6-0) are perfect once again this fall as they have already earned victories against a pair of No. 2-ranked teams in UCLA on Aug. 22 and Notre Dame on Sept. 4.
“We are looking forward to measuring ourselves against the top team in the nation,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “We’ve never been in this position before to compete against the No. 1-ranked team, and we’ll certainly look forward to the challenge that is before us tomorrow night.”
Senior forward Casey Nogueira leads the North Carolina attack after receiving consensus First-Team All-America accolades a year ago while being named the National Player of the Year by such publications as Soccer America, Soccer Buzz, Soccer News Network and TopDrawerSoccer.com. Nogueira is one of four Tar Heels to score at least three goals so far this season.
Like Nogueira, the Missouri Athletic Club of St. Louis placed senior defender Whitney Engen and senior midfielder Tobin Heath on its preseason watch list for the Hermann Trophy presented annually to the top player in all of women’s college soccer. The MAC Hermann Trophy is college soccer’s equivalent for the Heisman Trophy presented each year to the nation’s premier college football player.
The Tigers (4-1-1) enter the match with a five-game unbeaten streak after posting a pair of 4-0 shutouts of Oklahoma on Friday night and Louisiana-Lafayette on Sunday afternoon.
Senior midfielder Melissa Clarke led the charge against the Sooners by scoring two goals and logging one assist to cement her position as the team’s leading scorer with five goals and two assists for 12 points this season. She also leads the team with two game-winning goals on the year.
Senior midfielder Malorie Rutledge displayed the form that earned her consensus All-America honors last season while scoring two goals against the Cajuns. She is now LSU’s second-leading scorer on the season with three goals and eight points after being named to the Hermann Trophy Watch List back in August.
Sophomore goalkeeper Mo Isom continues to lead the Tiger defense as she has posted four shutouts in the 2009 season with an outstanding 0.48 goals against average in six starts.
“Our team has shown gradual improvement with each game this season, and that is very important for the girls as they prepare for the start of conference play next weekend,” Lee said. “Everything we’ve done up to this point of the season has been to prepare us for the SEC. It will be another exciting year in the league with a number of teams having an eye on winning the conference title.”
After facing the Tar Heels on Friday, the Tigers will battle tournament host Duke on Sunday afternoon at approximately 2 p.m. CT. They will then kick off SEC play next weekend as they return home to compete against Georgia on Sept. 25 at 7 p.m. and Tennessee on Sept. 27 at 1 p.m.