The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns were coming off of a rough yet promising outing in soccer last Sunday, Sept. 8 after meeting the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge. In spite of a stunning early goal by Lucy Ortiz and a tough first-half effort, the defense was overwhelmed in the second half. The Cajuns conceded two solo goals and a penalty kick in the span of 20 minutes late to seal their loss, 1–3.
Head Coach Chris McBride spoke about the team’s preparation and effort for that particular matchup in his opening statements in a press conference held the next day.
“We knew we were gonna get tested,” McBride said. “I think the team and the athletes went in with a game plan and they bought into it wholeheartedly, and they bought into it so well that we took an early lead.”
McBride went on to break down the early goal and explained that it wasn’t the type of sequence he expected to produce against a defense like the Tigers’.
“We didn’t expect to get the chance we had earlier on, we thought that would come a little bit later, thought we were gonna have to frustrate them, but we had a great opportunity,” McBride said.
“Bailey Giddings got on the ball and played Meg Bradley into the channel and she went 1v1 inside the box and created an opportunity for Lucy to score the first goal against LSU that this program’s scored, and it was a great finish.”
Dating back to 2000, the Cajuns had indeed never scored a goal against LSU in the 11 matches that the programs had played, making Thursday statistically the best performance the Cajuns have ever had against the in-state Goliath.
“It left us an opportunity to not see out the game, but we had to defend a little bit more than we wanted to for a large majority of the game,” McBride said. “I think we frustrated them. We compacted and condensed the central areas, we made them take chances from areas that they specifically didn’t want to take chances from.”
The Cajuns would then have to follow this loss up with a trip to Beaumont, Texas to face the Lamar Cardinals Thursday night.
This Lamar team had potential to make a run in its schedule, as they had won their last two home games, one against a high-upside Sam Houston squad who themselves had upset the Houston Cougars squad a month prior.
“Lamar are a great team. They won the Southland Conference, I think, for the last three years. They play some really good soccer, they’re athletic, they’ve got some pieces that can really cause you problems,” McBride said of the matchup.
This came to bear in the match’s tenth minute, when Lamar’s Trinity Clark stole a careless midfield dribble, broke out in a two-on-four dash, and dealt to Cena Carlson, who unleashed a beautiful outside-the-box upper-right scorcher off the keeper’s outstretched mitts to take the lead.
The game would carry on into the dark, the Cajuns keeping possession well and pressing hard in the second half trying to convert. It seemed as though the effort would be fruitless, until with just four minutes remaining, Mariella Stephens scored on a zany busted-coverage left-footed tap-in on a rejected corner kick.
The entire Lamar team, seeming to think they’d cleared successfully, pushed forward all at once, leaving their keeper all alone.
Both teams scrambled to get one last chance to score, rushing throw-ins and tackling hard, but the score would close as a 1–1 draw.
Next up, the Cajuns will begin conference play at home against the Texas State Bobcats next Thursday on Sept. 22, followed by Appalachian State on Saturday, Sept. 26.
Coach McBride says he will need better from his squad to make it against a Bobcats team that is surpassing expectations.
“The response after giving up that second goal [to the Tigers], we can’t have that moving into conference play. Texas State went on the road and tied with Oklahoma State who were 13th in the nation, 0–0,” McBride said.
“They’re always very competitive, they’re very athletic, so again, it’s gonna be a similar-type mindset when you get into that game with Texas State.”