LSU senior defender Alex Arlitt will be eligible to play in the team’s Southeastern Conference home opener against the University of Georgia at 6 p.m. tonight at the LSU Soccer Stadium.
Arlitt, one of the team’s most experienced leaders with 72 career starts, was assessed a red card in the team’s SEC opener against the University of Alabama on Friday night and forced to sit out during the Tigers’ 1-0 victory against No. 15 Duke on Sunday.
Tonight’s game is an important conference match for both teams. LSU (5-1-2, 0-1 SEC) hopes to get back on track after losing its SEC opener in dramatic fashion to Alabama. The Tigers conceded a golden goal in the 102nd minute of play while playing with 10 players after Arlitt was sent off. LSU coach Brian Lee said his team showed great resilience by evening the score after Arlitt was ejected, even though the Tigers gave up the game-winning goal in extra time.
“We have to manage whatever gets thrown in front of us, whether we go down to 10 players or we face a different playing style from the other team,” Lee said. “We have to grind out results.”
The University of Georgia
(1-5-1, 0-1 SEC) heads into tonight’s match fresh off a victory against Samford University on Sunday, but the Bulldogs dropped their first conference match to South Carolina on
Friday night.
LSU is coming off its first win against a ranked team since 2013. The Tigers took down the Blue Devils, 1-0, behind a second half goal scored by sophomore forward Jorian Baucom.
Georgia has only scored two goals through its first seven matches, while LSU has netted 16 through its first 8 games of the season. Baucom has an SEC leading eight goals this season and earned SEC Offensive
Player of the Week honors Monday. The top goal scorer in the SEC has scored in six straight games for the Tigers.
The Bulldogs struggled to find success this preseason, losing five straight games before their win on Sunday. LSU coach Brian Lee said Georgia’s record might be misleading because of the quality teams it faced. Georgia already has played Wake Forest, South Carolina, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Clemson.
“With Georgia, it’s important to get a good look at who they’re actually playing more so than their record,” Lee said. “To be fair to them if they would’ve played the schedule that half of our league played they’d be 6-1 like some of the other teams. It’s probably the toughest nonconference schedule I’ve seen in my 10 years in the SEC. We have to be prepared for a really tough game.”
Three of Georgia’s five losses came against top 25 teams, while LSU took down the 15th-ranked team on Sunday without Arlitt in the lineup. Junior forward Summer Clarke said the team is focused on making small adjustments heading into tonight’s match to ensure victory.
We’re just trying to get the little things right,” Clarke said. “There’s always things you can work on ad it’ll be great having Arlitt back out there.”