BATON ROUGE, La. – Vanderbilt picked up its third-straight win Friday night with a 2-0 victory on the road over LSU, keeping its chances of earning a double bye in next month’s SEC Tournament very much alive.

“We are really pleased to come away with a win,” Vanderbilt head coach Darren Ambrose said. “Credit to LSU, they made it really difficult and had their share of the game. I don’t think it was our best performance but we found moments of quality in front of goal and I thought our defending was outstanding.

“Ella Shamburger and Maya Antoine really did a great job generating most of our possession out of the back. We weren’t as comfortable on the ball as we would have liked but still had some great moments to create chances. It’s positive to be able to walk away looking at how we want to improve in some areas and to still get a big shutout on the road.”

Collecting a poor clearance attempt by the LSU defense in the 16th minute, Raegan Kelley had a nice touch to control a 50-50 ball and drew a foul just off the right side of the penalty area. Taking the free kick, Maddie Elwell sent a low, bending ball into the box and Leila Azari redirected it home for her first of the season to make it an early 1-0 Vanderbilt lead.

After weathering an LSU attack looking for the equalizer, Olivia Simmons pressured the LSU back line and forced a turnover in the 80th minute to setup Vanderbilt’s insurance goal. Taking the ball away from her defender, she took a couple touches and fired her shot from 22 yards out at the top of the box to the left side of goal past LSU goalkeeper Mollee Swift.

LSU took the first two shots of the game in the opening two minutes. After that, the Tigers were held without a shot until the 63rd minute in the second half, but all five shots LSU took after the third minute were off target.

With back-to-back clean sheets, it’s the first time Vanderbilt has posted consecutive shutouts since opening the 2019 season with five clean sheets in a row. Both shutouts belong to Sarah Fuller, which are the first two of her career.

Now with 12 points for the season, Vanderbilt keeps pace in the overall points race in the chase for a double bye to the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament. Entering the night, Vanderbilt was tied with Mississippi State for the No. 4 seed but with MSU’s loss to South Carolina, the Dores moved into the No. 4 seed alone.

South Carolina and Arkansas lead the way with 18 points apiece and Texas A&M owns the No. 3 seed with 15 points to date.

Behind Vanderbilt, Tennessee stands fifth with 10 points and Mississippi State stays at nine points. Auburn and Georgia are currently tied for seventh with eight points and Ole Miss sits ninth with six points.

With one game left in the regular season, Vanderbilt will return home for Senior Night against Ole Miss on Saturday. Kickoff on West End is set for 6 p.m. on SEC Network+.

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