BATON ROUGE – The Tigers stood tall defensively while limiting the visiting Vanderbilt Commodores to just one shot on target in 110 minutes of action on Friday night as they extended their home unbeaten streak to an impressive nine-straight games in a scoreless draw in front of a season-high crowd of 1,412 fans packing the LSU Soccer Stadium.

LSU’s two-match losing streak in SEC play was short-lived as the Tigers (7-3-3, 1-3-1 SEC) also extended their unbeaten run against Vanderbilt (5-5-3, 1-2-2) to three-straight in the series. The two sides have now played to extra time in each of their last three meetings with the Tigers coming out on top by a 1-0 margin in Baton Rouge in 2012 and a 2-1 scoreline in Nashville in 2013.

LSU remained unbeaten on its home field during the 2015 season while moving to 6-0-3 in nine matches played at the LSU Soccer Stadium since its home opener on Aug. 25 against Northwestern State.

The Tigers were strong in defense with senior Alex Arlitt, junior Megan Lee, sophomore Jordan Carvery and freshman Alex Thomas turning in one of their standout performances on the season on the back line. Senior Catalina Rubiano saved the only shot on target she faced in seven total attempts by the Commodores for her fourth clean sheet of the campaign.

The Commodores did not find the frame in 90 minutes as the match went into extra time, and only threatened Rubiano’s goal when junior midfielder Lydia Simmons fired on target from range in the 93^rd minute of play for the only effort on goal by the visitors in 110 minutes of action. Vanderbilt’s First-Team All-SEC striker Simone Charley was held without a single shot in the contest in four periods.

“I thought they were outstanding tonight. To hold anybody without a shot on goal (in 90 minutes) is not easy,” LSU head coach Brian Lee said of his defensive unit following the match. “We needed that. We have really been giving up a few too many goals, many on set pieces, and we did a great job of cleaning that up tonight.”

The Tigers were outstanding in defending Vanderbilt’s set pieces throughout the contest as the Commodores were held without a shot on any of their 21 set-piece opportunities on the night, including their game-high 12 corner kicks and nine free kicks taken after drawing a foul from the home side.

“Jordane (Carvery) and I just kind of rotated throughout the match and just went with the flow of play,” Arlitt said of the defensive organization with her defensive partner in the middle. “I thought overall we did quite well (defending set pieces). We’ve worked a lot in practice on our clearances because we felt like that was one of our shortfalls last week. We did improve a lot on that aspect tonight.”

The Tigers proved to be the more dangerous side going forward in the match while firing six shots on target on their 11 total attempts through 110 minutes of play while also adding five corner kicks on the night.

It took more than 55 minutes for either side to find the target in the match when LSU’s senior midfielder Heather Magee ripped the first shot on goal on the night when she skipped past two defenders and fired inside the left post into the arms of Vanderbilt goalkeeper Christiana Ogunsami for the save. Ogunsami was then tested again by LSU’s star strikers Summer Clarke and Jorian Baucom with chances just 42 seconds apart in the 65^th minute when Clarke found the target from range and Baucom turned and fired on goal from 10 yards as both were denied the breakthrough goal.

Baucom led the Tiger attack with two shots on goal on the night, while senior midfielder Natalia Gomez-Junco and sophomore midfielder Debbie Hahn also found the target late in the second half.

The Tigers will break for a week before returning to action next Friday night when they play host to the Missouri Tigers on Oct. 9 with kickoff set for 7 p.m. CT at the LSU Soccer Stadium on the SEC Network+. They then make the trip to Gainesville, Florida, on Sunday, Oct. 11, when they will face the nationally-ranked Florida Gators at Noon CT also on the SEC Network+.

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