The LSU lacrosse club dodged lightning Saturday afternoon to secure a winning record for the season – the club’s first winning record in history.
The Tigers finished the year at 6-5 — the team’s best-ever record — after a dramatic two-game home stand against Tulane and Memphis.
The Green Wave visited Baton Rouge on Thursday night, pushing LSU into three overtimes before the Tigers won out, 11-10.
“Tulane was definitely the hard one,” said senior goalkeeper Stephen Krobert. “That’s the one that I wanted to win the most because we’ve beaten them two years in a row.”
Freshman forward Jimmy Raff scored the game-winner from the Tulane crease for the sudden-death win.
“I wound up at the top of the crease late in the third overtime,” Raff said. “[LSU junior midfielder] Phil Niddrie fed me the ball from behind the goal. I just caught it and scored.”
Krobert preserved the Tigers’ hopes in the overtime periods, playing through a broken thumb he sustained Wednesday in practice.
“It was difficult to say the least,” he said. “It changed the way I played in the cage because I was worried about leaving my thumb open [to attacking players].”
LSU finished the season with a 9-5 handling of Memphis. The inclement weather that hung over the LSU football spring game also plagued lacrosse, as the Tigers endured several lightning delays.
“We were up 4-1 but … we had to stop play four or five times,” Krobert said. “[Memphis] came within two but that’s as close as they came. We just played lockdown defense in the third and fourth quarters and blew them out in the second half.”
—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]
LSU finishes first winning lacrosse season in school history – 5:45 p.m.
April 19, 2009