The LSU soccer team could only watch in shock and disbelief Thursday as Alabama stormed the field and celebrated a wild 3-2 overtime victory.
This wasn’t supposed to happen to a team with the Southeastern Conference’s top recruiting classes the past two seasons, but it did. Again.
The Tigers (5-8-2, 1-4-1 SEC) fell to the Crimson Tide in overtime largely because of their ongoing inability to close out games in the final minutes.
LSU allowed Alabama to equalize the game at 2-2 off a corner kick in the 88th minute of regulation, and the Crimson Tide claimed victory a mere 3 minutes into the overtime period.
“You know, we have a really young team, and all of these SEC games are going to come down to the wire,” said LSU soccer coach Brian Lee. “We’ve got to get to the point where we can seal them off.”
Sealing off matches has been perhaps the biggest struggle for the young Tigers this season, and now LSU faces an uphill battle if it hopes to be among the 10 SEC programs competing in the conference tournament at season’s end.
The Tigers are 1-5 in matches decided by one goal. In four of the five losses, LSU was tied after the first half, and three games were either lost or tied in the last 5 minutes of regulation or overtime.
Two of the Tigers’ losses in the final minutes came from goals scored off of corner kicks against Rice and Alabama. LSU’s 3-3 draw against Arkansas on Sept. 28 came after the Razorbacks scored a game-tying goal off a corner try with 7 seconds left in the match.
But Lee said the team’s overeagerness and inexperience are at the heart of its late-game troubles.
“We’re certainly freezing up a little bit late in those games, but it’s not a lack of a want to or desire,” Lee said. “They just get nervous, but Alabama has a team with five or six seniors on the field. They’ve been through it, and they’ve been on the wrong end of these games a lot. There’s just a learning curve for us.”
LSU has learned some harsh lessons this season in the ultra-competitive SEC, and the Tigers’ late-game struggles have them on the outside of the conference-tournament picture looking in.
LSU is now tied for 11th with its next opponent, Tennessee, in the SEC standings. But a Tigers’ win combined with an Auburn loss against Texas A&M on Friday would catapult LSU into sole possession of 10th place with four matches left in the regular season.
The Tigers may have received a steady boost between the net with the emergence of junior goalkeeper Catalina Rubiano, who recorded three saves in her first career start Thursday against the Crimson Tide.
The New Orleans native provides LSU with a more-seasoned presence on the back than perhaps freshman Lily Alfeld, who started the first 14 games of the season after arriving from the 2014 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
But even Rubiano can’t accurately predict which way the ball will bounce on those frantic corner kicks at the end of games.
“On corners like that, the ball bobbles around,” Rubiano said. “It’s almost 50-50 for whoever gets to it first. We should have gotten it out, but [Alabama] got to it first and put it in.”
LSU junior midfielder Natalia Gomez-Junco said it’s up to the squad to match the intensity on free kicks its much older and more experienced opponents likely will bring, no matter what the score and game clock indicates.
“The free kicks are going to be 100 percent physical, so we have to have that mindset to be tough,” Gomez-Junco said. “It’s a mentality we have to take to be strong and get it out of the box. We have to manage better in those end-of-game situations and stay focused and don’t think we’ve won the game with 5 minutes left. It’s never won until the buzzer goes off.”
You can reach David Gray on Twitter @dgray_TDR.