No. 24 Alabama Soccer Gets What it Needed in Win Over LSU

The Alabama soccer team got four big goals and a big win against LSU on Friday night.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Sometimes, the question of how good a team truly is comes down to how it responds after a defeat. The No. 24 Alabama soccer team responded on Friday night in an SEC west matchup against LSU, winning 4-1 in the type of offensive showing that the team needed badly.

An early goal from the Tigers (8-6-1, 3-4 SEC), who slipped below .500 in conference play with the result, was all the visitors would get. Taylor Dobles helped LSU get on the board within 10 minutes, but it was Alabama which stormed back and netted the next four.

It was just what the doctor ordered for the Crimson Tide (9-3-4, 3-3-1 SEC). 

"I think we needed it," said defender Brooke Steere, whose goal in the 59th minute rounded out the scoring. "We have all the pieces, and it just sometimes doesn't fall together like we want it to. Tonight, obviously, it did. I feel like our team is built on momentum, and sometimes we just need a little kick, and it starts."

Steere's header was noteworthy in that it came off a set piece, specifically a corner kick. It was in this area that Alabama excelled in 2022, but the set pieces have seldom been accompanied by a score this fall. That changed on Friday. The players have been converting them in practice, and it finally translated into a match.

"Whether it's Felicia's [Knox] assists being down, or our goals being down, we scored a ton of goals [on set pieces] last year," head coach Wes Hart said. "We must have had 15 or 20 set pieces, and you take that out of the equation right now, and it's the reason why the production isn't quite what it was." Hart, using Knox as an example, added that 11 of her nation-leading 20 assists last season were off set pieces. "If you add 11 assists to Felicia off set pieces, 11 goals, we're probably undefeated right now. Maybe we lose 5-4 to Arkansas."

Knox did get in on the scoring in the 30th minute. Assisted by Gessica Skorka and Itala Gemelli, she stayed true to her word that she would be taking more shots in the box. That score, the game-winner, gave the Crimson Tide the lead. It was fellow midfielder Nadia Ramadan who squared things up at one apiece in the 21st minute with her third goal in four matches. She has emerged as a major player in the conference slate.

"I think just being able to recognize the moments that I can impact the game in, and being able to finish my chances," Ramadan said of the ways she's adjusted throughout her first collegiate season. "She's quick, she's dicey, she has great 1-on-1 ability and she scores bangers," defender Marianna Annest said.

Annest herself has spearheaded what's become a bit of a back line scoring spree. She scored the Crimson Tide's third goal of the match just over a minute into the second half. 

"There was just a sense of urgency that we had," she said. "We knew we needed to get balls in the back of the net, we needed to press them, we needed to get forward and we needed to take care of the ball when we have it, and I think we did all of those things really well."

Hart said Friday's match brought some of Alabama's best attacking soccer of the season. "We didn't just hang on at 2-1. We went and got the third, and then went and got the fourth... We didn't want to try to just kill the last 45 minutes off. We wanted to keep attacking."

The 11 shots on goal posted by the Crimson Tide were indicative of that attack, but more than numbers, it appeared that the effort was one of the most cohesive of league play. Once Alabama got it together after surrendering the early goal, everything was firing on all cylinders. Steere said the message following last Sunday's loss against Texas A&M was to "get it going." That's what happened on Friday. From the possession battle to the pressure and the scoring, Alabama turned in its best performance in conference play. 

LSU has now lost to Alabama, in the past two seasons, by a combined margin of 9-1. The Tigers have had no answer for recent Crimson Tide teams, and in both matches have fallen victim to a standout team performance.

As a reward for its efforts on Friday the 13th, the Crimson Tide will have another chance to ward off something that may have spooked it in the recent past: SEC road tests. The next match, against Ole Miss, is on the road. Ole Miss was ranked on Oct. 6, 2022, when it came to Tuscaloosa and fell 4-1. In five regular season matches after that, and seven overall, the team went winless. Whether or not Alabama actually is what broke Ole Miss, it's possible that the Rebels see it that way. 

Kickoff for that match is set for 6 p.m. CT on Oct. 19 in Oxford, Miss.

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