BATON ROUGE — LSU soccer stars Malorie Rutledge and Rachel Yepez have been honored for their performance in leading the Tigers to victories over a pair of SEC contenders this weekend as they are on the TopDrawerSoccer.com Women’s College Team of the Week released Monday.
The duo led an offensive onslaught by LSU as the Tigers dominated then No. 8-ranked Georgia by a 6-0 score on Friday night and Tennessee by a 5-1 margin on Sunday afternoon at the LSU Soccer Complex.
Yepez scored three goals and added two assists for eight points on the weekend to lead the way, including the game-winning goal against Tennessee in the ninth minute of play. In fact, Yepez scored two goals just 2 minutes, 6 seconds apart against the Lady Volunteers, including the first goal at the 6:52 mark.
Yepez also scored one goal and recorded two assists against the Bulldogs on Friday night. She assisted on the game-winning goal by freshman striker Carlie Banks just over two minutes into the match.
The senior from Fayetteville, N.C., kept constant pressure on opposing goalkeepers while firing a total of eight shots with three shots on goal in two matches.
Rutledge picked up right where she left off a year ago when she earned SEC Offensive Player of the Year honors as she scored one goal and added three assists to lead the Tigers to the top of the league table after the first weekend of SEC play. With three assists on the weekend, Rutledge extended her own LSU career record with 39 assists during her All-America career in Baton Rouge.
A native of Sharpsburg, Ga., Rutledge recorded her 10th career multi-assist game with two assists against Georgia while adding one assist against Tennessee to take over the team lead with five assists on the year. She also scored one of LSU’s five goals against Tennessee to move into a tie for the team lead with a total of five goals in 10 matches this fall.
Like Yepez, Rutledge also showed her efficiency throughout the weekend as five of her six shots were on goal, showing just why she has been named to the Hermann Trophy Watch List for this season.
TopDrawerSoccer.com Women’s College Team of the Week
Lauren Fowlkes, Notre Dame
Laura Heyboer, Michigan State
Coral Hoover, Cal Poly
Tiffany McCarty, Florida State
Whitney Palmer, Oklahoma
Carlee Payne, BYU
Devin Petta, Northeastern
Malorie Rutledge, LSU
Lindsay Thompson, Florida
Karin Volpe, Arizona State
Rachel Yepez, LSU