Vanderbilt’s sports woes continued on Sunday afternoon as the women’s soccer team fell to No. 10 LSU in the final 30 seconds of the first overtime period.
Malorie Rutledge scored the winning goal, her second goal of the game, past junior goalie Rachel Bachtel when the ball bounced off the near post, past Bachtel, and gave Rutledge an open shot.
The Commodores (7-6-1, 1-5 Southeastern Conference) controlled the first half against the talented Tigers (9-3-2, 5-1). Vanderbilt scored first in the 21st minute as redshirt junior forward Nicole Lukens scored her sixth goal of the season off a pass from senior midfielder Megan Forester.
The Commodore defense was also stout in the half after giving up a total of five goals in their last two games. The defense allowed the Tigers’ potent offense attack just one shot on goal in the first half, and it came in the final two and a half minutes.
“We had a decent defensive stand,” said Vanderbilt coach Ronnie Woodard. “I thought our defenders did a good job of dealing with what some would argue are the three best attacking players in the SEC.”
As well as the Commodores played in the first half, LSU played just as well in the second, and the Commodores were not able to hold on to the lead as the Tigers equalized in the 51st minute when Rutledge headed the ball in off a beautiful cross from Courtney Alexander.
When neither team was able to break the 1-1 tie in regulation, the game went into sudden death overtime. The Commodores had their best chance to win when junior Molly Kinsella got a shot off from the left corner of the penalty box that bounced off the far post. Lukens followed up the rebound, but her shot went just wide as well.
The game seemed destined for a second overtime period when LSU was awarded a corner kick with just a little over 30 seconds left in the first period; however, the Tigers corner kick bounced off the near post, rolled in front of the goal, and was tapped in by Rutledge to give the Tigers the win.
The game was obviously a huge disappointment for the Commodores who fell to 1-5 in SEC play, yet Woodard was able to find some positives.
“I thought we showed good patience and composure and some good hard fighting today and we are going to build on our defensive mentality and we're going to continue to build on the fact that we finally had the ball hit the back of the net,” she said.
The Commodores travel to Dixie next weekend to take on Auburn and Alabama, must-win games if they want to have a shot at postseason play.
“We’ve got to let the disappointment of how hard we fought settle in and then we’ve got to let it go and we’ve got to move on because we have more games left to play,” Woodard said.
