Lamar sports information

LAKE CHARLES — Looking for its third straight win to end the season, the Lamar women’s soccer team came up short as they were defeated by McNeese State, 1-0, on Friday evening in the 2018 regular season finale.

Big Red was outshot 19-6 in the contest and 12-5 on shots on goal. After getting five shots in the first half, the Cards only got one shot in the second half.

“The first half matched two very good teams against each other. Each team had quality scoring chancing in the half and both goalkeepers stepped up and made saves,” remarked head coach Steve Holeman. “McNeese controlled the second half of the game and outworked us. It’s a tough way to end the regular season but we will learn from it and get better and be ready for the conference tournament.”

Lamar (11-5-2, 7-2-2 Southland) had the first shot attempts of the game as Lucy Ashworth had a shot that was saved seven minutes into the contest and a shot that went high six minutes later. Between her shot attempts, Juana Plata had a shot that was saved by Nederland’s Emma Rooccaforte.

The Cowgirls had a couple of scoring chances within a minute span. Rachel Palet started the scoring chances with a shot wide for McNeese. Anna Watson followed with a shot that the Cards recorded a team save on and 20 seconds later Havanna Johnson had a shot that Sandra Nygard saved keeping the game scoreless.

Following the Cowgirls scoring opportunities, the Cardinals came back looking to score as Ashworth and Hailey Loupe had shots that were saved. Both teams continued to have scoring chances in the first half, but the game went scoreless into halftime.

In the 69th minute the Cardinals drew a foul in the box and Ashworth took the penalty kick. Her shot was saved by Roccaforte, keeping the game scoreless.

Three minutes later, McNeese scored the first goal of the contest. Anna Watson found Johnso,n who passed to Nola Prickett on the top right side of the box and found the back of the net putting the Cowgirls ahead, 1-0.

Following the goal, the Cardinals could not get anything going offensively as they did not record a shot the remainder of the contest.

Big Red’s next opportunity will be Wednesday when they take on Southeastern Louisiana in the quarterfinals of the Southland Conference Tournament. The game will begin Wednesday at 8 p.m. from the LU Soccer Complex.