It’s been a long season for the LSU soccer team, but Sunday’s match against No. 21 Georgia may have ended the 2014 campaign sooner than the Tigers would have liked.
LSU (5-10-2, 1-6-1 Southeastern Conference) allowed two first-half goals against the Bulldogs (10-3-1, 5-2-1 SEC), and the Tigers fell to Georgia 2-0 on Sunday at the Turner Soccer Complex.
Since claiming a 2-0 victory over Mississippi State on Oct. 3, LSU has dropped four consecutive matches, with opponents outscoring the Tigers by an 8-3 margin.
The loss maintained LSU’s 13th-place position in the SEC standings. Mathematically, the Tigers aren’t out of the SEC Tournament picture, but the loss dug the young squad into a much deeper hole.
With three games remaining in the regular season, LSU must win out if it hopes to be among the 10 clubs competing in the SEC tournament for the eighth consecutive season.
Tigers’ soccer coach Brian Lee, who’s in jeopardy of recording his first losing season since 2005, was pleased with the squad’s start against the Bulldogs but said the end of the first half was where the game was lost.
“I thought the first 25 minutes was really good, but then we hit that fatigue point and lost the game in the last 20 minutes of the first half,” Lee said.
LSU played Georgia even throughout the beginning of the match Sunday. But the Tigers failed to capitalize on two early scoring opportunities, and the miscues proved costly in the end.
In the eighth minute of the game, LSU sophomore midfielder Emma Fletcher found fellow sophomore Summer Clarke open in the left side of the penalty box with a clear look on net. But Clarke, who’s scored 17 goals in her career, misfired her shot wide right from 14 yards out.
LSU freshman striker Jorian Baucom had another chance to put the Tigers on the board when she fired off a shot in the 16th minute. But like Clarke’s early attempt, Baucom’s ball was wide right of the mark.
Clarke said the Tigers weren’t able to recover from the missed opportunities.
“The first 25 minutes, we were moving the ball well and creating a lot of chances and passing it around, which was good,” Clarke said. “But the fire went out, I guess at the end of the [first] half, and we never really got back into it.”
On the other side of the pitch, the Bulldogs managed to come away with two first-half goals, both of which came off of set pieces.
Georgia sophomore forward Rachel Garcia’s goal in the 26th minute proved to be all the Bulldogs needed to come away with their 10th victory of the season. But Georgia sophomore midfielder Gabby Seiler’s goal 15 minutes later proved to be the knockout blow for the Tigers.
“We were struggling in our defense, and we weren’t communicating very well,” said LSU junior goalkeeper Catalina Rubiano. “But the big thing was we weren’t clearing the ball. We need to start clearing everything out of the box faster.”
The Tigers will conclude the regular season with three home matches against teams among the top 45 of the Rating Percentage Index rankings. According to Rubiano, LSU must maintain its intensity for the entire 90 minutes — not only when the squad is behind on the scoreboard.
“We have to keep playing as if the other team hasn’t scored,” Rubiano said. “We’ve shown really good comebacks, but the problem is we don’t have that mentality the whole game. We can’t wait until we get scored on to play hard. It’s up to everybody to do that.”
You can contact David Gray on Twitter @dgray_TDR.