It’s unclear which LSU soccer team will take the pitch tonight against Southern Miss.The Tigers (0-1) have offered two vastly different performances to open the 2009 season, nipping No. 16 Texas, 2-1, in an exhibition with a last minute goal on Aug. 14 before suffering a shotless shutout loss, 2-0, to Memphis in the season opener last Friday.”We’ve left ourselves a lot of room to get better,” said LSU coach Brian Lee. “We had a really hard week of practice, and [Southern Miss] is a chance to prove to our fans we’re more the team that beat Texas than the team that lost to Memphis.”The loss cost LSU its first-ever preseason ranking. Memphis completely shut down the Tigers’ attack, recording zero shots on goal and added insult to injury by taking the ranking, the No. 25 spot, for itself.”We’re not used to starting out that way or losing at home,” said senior defender Katherine Lagow. “But I think it was good to get that out of the way at the beginning of the season and wake everybody up … There are no excuses for us coming out asleep.”Southern Miss (1-1) is off to a bumpy start of its own after posting a 5-13-1 mark in 2008. The Golden Eagles opened the season with a 3-0 loss to South Alabama before hammering McNeese State, 6-0.Lee said the Tigers need to find their stride early with a demanding non-conference schedule not too far away. LSU travels to face South Florida and Central Florida next weekend and also has dates with Oklahoma, No. 1 North Carolina and No. 10 Duke coming up.”This is a much more challenging non-conference schedule, day-to-day, than we’ve ever played,” Lee said. “There is a sense of urgency and a want to improve going into those games.”Senior forward Amanda Carreno said the schedule serves as a chance for the Tigers to assert the program’s improvement, climbing from an eighth place Southeastern Conference finish in 2006 to the second place spot last season.”We’ve gotten a lot better in the four years we’ve been here,” Carreno said. “We really do think we’re up there, and we’ve got to prove ourselves in these next coming games.”To do that, Lee said the Tigers have to be “more risk-taking” in the attacking third of the field.”We’ve got to be more aggressive, taking on players and putting together one-two combinations to get through the defense,” he said. “You can’t settle when you get into the attacking third of the field.”Memphis employed a man-marking scheme, rather than a traditional zone defense to slow down and confuse the LSU attack — a feature Lagow said hampered the Tigers’ forwards.”That’s something we’re not used to,” she said. “We’re used to slipping through holes and gaps, and our forwards hadn’t really played against that in a while. But we’ve learned from that, and we’ll be able to handle it next time.”With the loss — just the Tigers’ second non-conference home loss in four years — out of the way, Lagow seemed confident as to which LSU squad would take the field against Southern Miss.”We weren’t playing hard [against Memphis]. We got bullied around a little bit, and that was very uncharacteristic of our team,” she said. “I can say with much confidence that I don’t expect us to get pushed around — especially up top.”With influenza making the rounds to the volleyball team this week, Lagow said “a few girls are dealing with some issues” but nothing serious.”There’s no epidemic. We’re not out for the game or anything,” Lagow said. “They gave everybody hand sanitizer.”Sophomore  midfielder Taryne Boudreau could miss tonight’s game because of a concussion suffered against Memphis.—-    Contact David Helman at [email protected]