BATON ROUGE – The LSU Soccer team (6-3-1, 1-1-0 SEC) will host the Mississippi State Bulldogs (6-2-2, 1-1-0 SEC) for the squad’s SEC opener inside the LSU Soccer Stadium on Sunday, September 24 at 6 p.m. CT.
It is alumni weekend for LSU, as former Tigers will be recognized at the match on Sunday.
“We are excited to be back home in front of our fans after a big road win at No. 22 Georgia,” head coach Sian Hudson said. “That feeling of coming from behind in the manner that we did late in the game was great, but the team is now focused on Mississippi State and the difficult challenge they will pose.”
“They are a very organized and defensively disciplined team who will be difficult to break down, so we will need to have variety in our attack to pose different questions to them. It has been an absolute battle every time we’ve played them (MSU) and we expect nothing different tomorrow as we look to win our SEC home opener.”
The competition between the Tigers and the Bulldogs will be available to watch via streaming on SEC Network+ and live stats for the game can be found on lsusports.net.
Series History
LSU owns the series over Mississippi State with an all-time record of 21-3-3. The Tigers and the Bulldogs last met last year, when MSU defeated LSU by a score of 3-2 in Baton Rouge.
The Tigers are 10-2-2 when hosting the Bulldogs inside the LSU Soccer Stadium.
Last Time On The Pitch
The LSU Soccer team (6-3-1, 1-1-0 SEC) overturned a two-goal deficit to defeat the No. 22 Georgia Bulldogs (4-2-3, 0-1-1 SEC) by a score of 3-2 on Thursday night at the Turner Soccer Complex.
The Tigers scored three goals in the final 17 minutes of the match in Athens for the comeback over the Bulldogs and recorded their first conference win of the season.
Georgia took the lead in the final seconds of the first half as Croix Bethune slotted a ball into the bottom left corner from 12 yards out. The lead was extended to 2-0 in the 56th minute when Madison Haugen sent a first-time blast from inside the box into the back of the net.
The Tigers made it 2-1 on the night after Mollee Swift converted from the penalty spot in the 74th minute. Two minutes later, Rammie Noel tied it up with a left-footed shot from six yards out that banged in off the right post. The winning goal came in the 84th minute when Sage Glover pounced on a loose ball in the box and scored from five yards out.
The victory over No. 22 Georgia marked the second Top-25 win for Sian Hudson and the Tigers this year. LSU remains unbeaten in four out of their five last matches against ranked opponents.
“I’m just really proud of this team,” Head Coach Sian Hudson said. “To go 2-0 down in the first ten minutes of the second half and have an unbelievable response against a top-25 team on the road, I couldn’t be more proud of the players. We played a lot of different systems within the context of the game and the fight and grit in the second half was unbelievable.”
The opening 20 minutes of the match saw neither team able to take control of the match. The Bulldogs took control the rest of the first half, with Swift making saves in the 24th and 27th minutes to keep the score even. The Tigers had one shot on goal in the first half, an effort from Mollie Baker in the 42nd minute that was saved by Georgia goalkeeper Jordan Brown.
Seconds before halftime, the Bulldogs took a 1-0 lead. Nicole Vernis won the ball near Georgia’s final third and played a ball to Bethune, who stayed strong and placed the ball into the bottom left corner. The goal was the final action of the half and saw Georgia take the 1-0 lead into halftime.
The Bulldogs began the second half right where they left off by doubling their lead in the 56th minute. Mallie McKenzie charged into the box from the right flank and sent a ground cross to Haugen, who thumped a powerful shot past Swift and into the back of the net.
Down two goals with less than 20 minutes to go, the Tigers scored their first goal of the night in the 74th minute. Forward Ava Galligan delivered a superb cross to the box that found Noel, who was fouled in the box when attempting to shoot. LSU was then awarded a penalty kick as a result of the foul. Swift stepped up to take the shot and blasted the penalty to the left corner to put the Tigers on the board. The goal is the third from the penalty spot in Swift’s LSU career
Two minutes later, the match was tied at 2-2. Noel found herself on the ball in the box, where she cut outside on her left foot and sent a strong shot that bounced in off the far post to tie it up. Noel’s goal is her third of the season for LSU, tying her previous career-high tally in 2021, and the ninth of her collegiate career.
“Rammie (Noel) was key on the first and second goal,” Hudson said. “She won the penalty on the first goal and then scored the second goal, a fantastic effort tonight.”
With momentum now on the side of the visiting team, the Tigers took their first lead of the night in the 84th minute. Baker charged into the box and sent a shot on goal that beat the goalkeeper, but was blocked by a Georgia defender. The goalkeeper could not recover the ball and Glover pounced on this chance, scoring on a shot that crossed the line despite a defender’s attempt at a clearance. Glover’s third goal of the season was the final piece of an energetic ten minutes that saw the Tigers go from 2-0 down to leading 3-2.
Georgia could not muster a response in the final six minutes of the match and the final whistle blew with LSU claiming a 3-2 win. The Bulldogs outshot the Tigers by a margin of 13-8, with both teams finishing with five shots on goal a piece. While LSU opened the match slowly, the final 20 minutes saw the Tigers rally from behind and claim a tough win on the road against a Top 25 foe.
“The whole team’s performance tonight with the different types of gameplans was just fantastic,” Hudson said.
2023 Stat Leaders
The Tigers are 6-3-1 on the year with a 4-1-1 home record and a 2-2-0 record on the road. There have been various players across the scoresheets this year, putting the Tigers in an elite group of schools who have 10 or more different goal-scorers in the country.
Forward Taylor Dobles and midfielder Ida Hermannsdottir lead the squad in goals scored this year with four each.
Dobles tallied her second brace of the year against Northwestern State to record her third and fourth goals of the year. She now owns nine in her career.
Hermannsdottir notched her fourth goal against Pepperdine to move her career total to 11. The midfielder has also tallied two assists, nine shots on goal and 10 points through non-conference play.
Noel and Glover joined Baker as the second highest goal-scorer with three on the year after both tallied a goal in the Tiger’s last win over No. 22 Georgia.
Freshman forward Ava Galligan leads the team in assists with four. She has also notched one goal, six points and four shots on goal in her first year as a Tiger. Her first collegiate goal came against Pepperdine, where she found the equalizer to level out the match for the Tigers and earn a point in the draw.
Goalkeeper Mollee Swift has recorded 23 saves on the year with 10 starts and 828 minutes played in between the posts. She owns a GAA of 1.30 this year.
Veteran returners Baker, Swift, Gordon and Noel are the only four players to start in every match for LSU on the year, having tallied over 600 minutes on the pitch each through 10 matches.
Conference Rankings
LSU sits at fifth in the rankings with their record of 1-1-0 in conference play. The squad will look to add to the win column on Sunday evening as they host Mississippi State in their home conference opener.
The Tigers rank amongst the top five teams in the conference in goals, shots, points and assists. LSU has tallied 25 goals, 24 assists, 169 shots and 74 points through 10 matches this year.
Baker’s 41 shots on the year place her second while Galligan is also ranked one of the top five assisters in the conference.
Swift places sixth in the rankings in the saves category with her 23 on the year.
Swift’s 300 & Counting
Goalkeeper Mollee Swift recorded her 300th career save in the Tiger’s match against Northwestern State. Her two saves against the Lady Demons helped her reach this milestone in her career.
She previously recorded 45 saves during her time at the University of Colorado- Colorado Springs. Since transferring to LSU in 2021, she has tallied 262 saves in between the posts.
Her career total sits at 306 with eight matches left on the conference slate. The Papillion, Nebraska native has tallied 23 saves through 10 matches and 828 minutes between the posts for the Tigers this year.
Swift’s 262 career saves in the Purple & Gold places her at third for most in LSU program history. Megan Kinneman holds second place with 284 while Caroline Brockmeier leads the category with 287 career saves at LSU.
The Captains
LSU is captained by the veteran duo of fifth year seniors Maya Gordon and Mollee Swift for the 2023 season.
A native of Papillion, Nebraska, Swift is a three-year starter between the posts for the Tigers. The goalkeeper recorded 77 saves last year, which placed her third in the conference. She also averaged 4.05 saves per game leading all SEC keepers. She was responsible for five clean sheets in the 2022 season and finished the year with a record of 7-4-7 and 1,693 minutes played.
Swift currently ranks third in LSU program history in saves and shutouts as she will look to continue to etch her name in the record book this year.
Gordon is a veteran in the backline who has notched notable minutes in her four years at LSU with a total of 4,775 minutes on the pitch heading into her final season.
The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, native earned the start in 18 of 19 matches for the Tigers last year and returns experience to the defensive unit.
The Squad
This year, the roster is composed of 28 athletes with nine seniors, three juniors, 11 sophomores and five freshmen. 21 Tigers return from the 2022 roster who made a run to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
There are seven new faces on the 2023 squad, including freshman Caley Swierenga, Andrea Iljkic, Ava Galligan, Brielyn Knowles and Alyson Campbell. New to the squad this year is also sophomore transfer out of Oklahoma, Hali Hartman, and walk-on Sarah Portis.
Fifth-year veterans Mollee Swift and Maya Gordon are key returners as they lead the squad as captains this upcoming season. Also returning are seniors Rammie Noel, Taylor Dobles, Jordan Johnson, Abby Smith, Britney Bertram, Mollie Baker and Bella Zanotelli, who bring experience and depth to the squad.
The junior class is composed of Nevaeh Johnson, Tori Gillis and Jaden Humbyrd. Danielle Shannon, Laney Gonzales, Bailey Herfurth, Jocelyn Ollivierre, Ida Hermannsdóttir, Angelina Thoreson, Kelsey Major Raelyn Prince and Sage Glover are ready for year two in the purple and gold.
Three countries are represented in this year’s squad (United States, Iceland and Sweden). Ida Hermannsdottir is a native of Iceland and Angelina Thoreson is a proud Swede.
Of the remaining 26 athletes, six are native to Colorado, five to Texas, and four to Louisiana and Florida. The remaining states that are represented are Arizona, New York, Virginia, Nebraska, Virginia and Washington.
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