After wrapping up its second- consecutive win Friday night, the LSU soccer team needed only to beat Vanderbilt to establish itself as a Southeastern Conference contender.
Consider it another opportunity lost.
The offensively-challenged Tigers (5-6-3, 2-2-2) failed to finish numerous chances in the penalty area Sunday in a 1-0 loss to Vanderbilt, their first home loss in 15 matches.
The weekend got off to a positive start when junior midfielder Natalie Martineau headed in a double overtime winner to give LSU a much-needed SEC win against Kentucky.
“I saw [LSU sophomore forward] Carlie [Banks] coming, and the ball came over and I just jumped as high as I could,” Martineau said.
Up until that point, the Tigers had an 8-0 advantage in shots on goal and a 10-1 edge in corner kicks but were unable to beat Wildcats senior goalkeeper Sydney Hiance.
“I was beginning to think we were a little snakebitten,” said LSU coach Brian Lee. “Some of those [chances] were harder to miss than make.”
Instead, the ineffectiveness simply came Sunday.
Lee bemoaned his young team’s inability to focus through Sunday matches, most notably in a 1-0 win against Louisiana-Lafayette that he called their worst game of the year at the time. However, he may have a new candidate for that distinction.
“Some of them don’t get it, that every game is hard,” Lee said. “Obviously, I think we weren’t prepared mentally and then didn’t bail ourselves out by playing hard physically.”
Afterward, Lee conceded that his team was likely incapable of championship-caliber play, instead focusing on simply making the SEC tournament.
One player who continued to shine was freshman goalkeeper Megan Kinneman. Kinneman earned her third shutout of the season Friday night — although she didn’t have to make a save.
“When I don’t get any shots on goal, that’s big to my defense in front of me,” she said. “Very well done.”
The same couldn’t be said for the goal Vanderbilt scored, when All-SEC senior forward Molly Kinsella found herself wide open in the penalty area and blasted the ball past Kinneman into the far post.
Ultimately, it was LSU’s inability to finish similar chances that doomed them. Freshman midfielder Nina Anderson failed to trap a ball played into the box that would have left her one-on-one from seven yards out, and several players seemed more content to fire shots from 25 yards out than pursue quality scoring chances.
Junior midfielder Allysha Chapman was the sole offensive catalyst, delivering runs of up to 80 yards only to see consistently inconsistent finishing.
“We keep talking about end line crosses, and she probably gets 80 to 90 percent of them,” Lee said. “We’re really, really dependent on Chappy. We just wish there were two of three of her.”
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Contact Ryan Ginn at [email protected]