The LSU soccer team finally got to play a game.LSU beat Centenary at home Sunday, 7-0, after not playing for 13 days because of Hurricane Gustav.”During the season you don’t go two weeks without playing ever,” said LSU soccer coach Brian Lee. “There’s no way to replicate game fitness in practice.”Now LSU (5-0-0) hits the road again today to play Oklahoma (1-6-0) in Norman, Okla., for the first of five straight road games.Lee said he is optimistic about the five-game road stretch.”The benefit of it all is we get six of our last seven at home once we’re done with this little trip,” he said. “We won’t spend a night in a hotel room until the conference tournament and hopefully through the [NCAA tournament].”Lee said his team is used to road travel after staying in Chicago for several days after the Lakeside Invitational to avoid the hurricane.”We’re fairly battle-tested,” Lee said.The team has had its games against Kent State, Dartmouth and Houston canceled and its game against UL-Lafayette postponed.”We just needed a game,” said senior defender Casey Crawford. “It was kind of frustrating to have all these games being canceled.”Junior midfielder Malorie Rutledge said the team built up a “willing to play” after the long break.”We’ve all just kind of realized you only get one chance at this,” she said.Rutledge said it took the team a while to get used to game speed against Centenary.”The first 10 minutes, it was kind of like, ‘What is this? Is this a game?'” Rutledge said. “After that it clicked with us.”Crawford called the Chicago road trip a “test run” that gauged the team’s ability to focus during adversity.”Everyone was worried about their houses and their families,” Crawford said. “But we did have to stay focused and take care of our jobs and our business up in Chicago and win those two games.”Rutledge said the team has its legs “underneath [them] now,” after training during the long break.”Everyone’s been playing, and they’re kind of tired,” Rutledge said. “Us not so much, we’re ready to go.”Lee said he isn’t worried about his team’s conditioning after playing only three times in three weeks.”This is the fittest team we’ve ever had by far,” Lee said. “We haven’t brought a kid off because they look tired all season.”LSU is ranked No. 11 and No. 15 in the Soccer America Top 25 and Soccer Buzz Top 30 polls, respectively.
 
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