LAFAYETTE
- It was 13 months ago that Louisiana's
fledging Ragin' Cajun soccer team
journeyed north to Monroe and recorded the
first win in the program's history.It
was the third match that the first-year
Cajun program had ever played, and Jene LeBlanc's goal in overtime gave the squad
a 3-2 victory over Louisiana-Monroe.
Head coach Dave Poggi knows that win
wasn't easy, and when the squads will
match up for a second time today at 4 p.m.
at Moore Park he knows that it may be even
tougher this time around.
"They've got a great scorer and very
solid goaltending," said Poggi of the
visiting Lady Indians, "so we know they're
going to be tough to handle."
Those two attributes have been part of
the Cajuns' struggles through the first
month of their second season, with the
lack of scoring punch and inconsistent
goalkeeping contributing to the team's
current 1-6 record and five-match losing
streak.
The second of those was better in UL's
last match on Friday in the Sun Belt
Conference opener against South Alabama,
with newcomer Leslie Beckman holding onto
a shutout until USA's Cindy Rainville had
one of her three game-winning goals this
season in a 1-0 overtime loss.
"Leslie was very solid, especially for
her first start," Poggi said after she
recorded four saves and gave up the lone
goal to last year's Sun Belt
regular-season co-champion squad.
Today, they'll face another prolific
goal scorer in ULM's Chelsea Shriner, the
leading scorer in the Southland
Conference.
Her unassisted goal with 5:56 left
Sunday gave the Indians a 1-0 road win
over SLU.
That win boosted ULM to 5-3-2 overall
and 4-1 in league plat, despite the fact
that the Indians got off only four shots.
"They're very solid," Poggi said.
"We've spent a lot of time over the last
couple of days working on getting more
scoring chances. We've had chances in our
last few games, but not a lot of really
dangerous chances."
Freshman Melissa Purvis scored her
second goal of the year against
Northwestern State and leads the Cajuns
with five points, with her shots against
the Lady Demons coming as part of a
school-record 30 shots in that contest.
Those shots, though, resulted in only two
goals.
UL has scored only six goals in seven
games, and Poggi said those numbers have
to improve as the squad gets further into
Sun Belt play. The Cajuns travel to meet
Florida International(5-2, 1-1) Sunday in
their next match after today's outing.
