Missouri soccer needed one goal to extend its season into the SEC Tournament. A dozen shots and nine corners later, it was still waiting for it.

Mizzou had to win to earn a trip to Pensacola, Florida, while LSU needed only a draw to stay alive. The Tigers went hunting for the goal from the opening whistle. LSU parked itself in front of its own net, soaked up everything Missouri threw at it, and held on for the 0-0 draw and the clean sheet.

The first half was a siege with nothing to show for it. Missouri outshot LSU 5-2 but didn’t put a single shot on target. When LSU did break through, senior goalkeeper Riley Wilkerson was there, turning away Linka Ono in the 16th minute and Sariyah Bailey in the 41st with sharp reaction saves.

Seconds before the break, senior forward Brianna Buels raced down the wing and delivered a cross to the head of freshman Audrey Gilbert, whose attempt drifted just wide as the half expired.

The second half was more of the same. Missouri took seven more shots and won seven corners, but nearly all were empty threats, blocked or sailing off target.

LSU goalkeeper Audur Scheving didn’t have a save to make until the 88th minute, when a shot from Mia Devrouax finally forced her to work. By then, the clock had already beaten the Tigers. At the other end, Wilkerson denied Bailey and LSU’s Kelsey Major to finish with four saves.

“We did everything but put one in the back of the net,” head coach Stefanie Golan said. “It’s okay for it to hurt, because it should. We were right there, and we didn’t lose.”

Golan pointed to the small things: timing on headers, squaring the shoulders to goal and taking a touch before striking. She said it was also the first time in her tenure that the postseason was entirely in her team’s hands, rather than depending on results elsewhere.

“It was a result away,” she said.

Missouri finishes the 2026 season 5-9-3 overall and 2-6-2 in SEC play, a step up from last year’s 4-10-3 and 1-7-2. The Tigers lose a double-digit senior class, the first group Golan’s staff recruited and developed through the program, but she said a young core, including freshmen Rylie Morse and Lana Adams, will keep growing.

“The resilience, the fight, the heart,” Golon said. “At any point they could have stopped, and they didn’t.”