LSU opened Southeastern Conference play on Sunday night with a 1-0 loss to Vanderbilt.
“We didn’t come out hard enough and we know that,” freshman defender Lucy Parker said. “It was a tough loss to take, and it’s just one of those things we have to come back, have a look at film, see what went wrong and get our heads up for Thursday.”
Vanderbilt (6-3, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) controlled the ball throughout much of the first half, never giving the Tigers a chance to do much with the ball.
The Tigers missed two chances early chances on by senior Zoe Higgins and senior Nicole Howard that could have given them to momentum they needed to get on top.
“I thought it could have been done and dusted in the first 15-20 minutes,” LSU coach Brian Lee said. “We had two really good chances, and I don’t think we hit the target on either of them. We got ourselves in a good spot, and Vandy gradually came into the game and they fought really hard.”
LSU (7-1, 0-1 SEC) picked up the pace in the second half, but still neither team seemed to excute to their potential.
Vanderbilt got a big break in the 86th minute when a long throw from freshman Olivia Simmons in got loose in the box and freshman Madiya Harriott put it in the back of the net, putting them up 1-0.
“Really their long throw as well is better than a corner so we certainly would have rather given up the corner than the long throw when that player’s [Olivia Simmons] in,” Lee said. “They’re a good wing attacking team and the ball just happened to bounce away for a ton of corners.”
LSU’s biggest difficulty in the game was giving up too many corner kicks and throw-ins as Vanderbilt attacked hard on the wings, resulting in many balls bouncing their way.
Vanderbilt’s efforts showed throughout the game as they ended with 10 corner kicks and nine shots to LSU’s seven corners and seven shots.
Vanderbilt defended well on the wings too, limiting LSU’s dynamic freshman Tinaya Alexander to only two shots and one on goal. The Tigers counter attacked well, leaving three-on-two and two-on-one multiple times, but never making anything out of it.
As SEC play continues, Parker says they need to be more ruthless in the box and get anything on the ball to produce more goals. The Tigers are hoping to use this first loss as motivation going forward.
“We’ve got to see what the game can give us,” Lee said. “This is SEC soccer so of the six games that have been played, five of them have been one-nil. All the teams in the league can really ugly it up and stop your rhythm of play if they want to. What we saw tonight, it will probably happen again as we keep going and we’ve got to figure out a way to play through it and be on the right end of the one-nil as well.”
