With a one-goal lead late Saturday, the Boston University men’s soccer team found itself in an all-too-familiar position.
The painful result was also all too familiar.
Leading Fairfield University 2-1 with less than eight minutes to play, the Terriers (0-4-0) could only watch as for the second time this season the club blew a late lead and lost, 3-2, in double overtime at Nickerson Field.
After dominating the Stags (2-0-2) for the first 45 minutes of play, BU lost its focus as the clock ran on, getting outshot 5-1 and failing to earn a single corner kick in the two overtime frames.
BU head coach Neil Roberts said after the game that the heartbreaking loss should have never happened.
“There’s no way we should have lost that game,” he said. “Absolutely no way we should have lost that game. [Fairfield] fought harder than we did.”
At halftime, the Terriers seemed to be steamrolling their way to their first victory of the season in their home debut.
BU drew first blood with 6:30 left in the first half when senior midfielder Federico Bianchi stole the ball near the center line and streaked down the left side. As the Fairfield defense clustered around Bianchi, he hit a perfect cross to freshman midfielder Roland Erlichman, who found the open net for his first collegiate goal.
Less than two minutes later, the scarlet and white gave itself a cushion when Jamie Johnson’s free kick from the left side was redirected by sophomore back Steven Gahl for a 2-0 lead.
Johnson struck a sinking, curling free kick that seemed destined for the arms of Fairfield’s junior goalkeeper Andrew Frankel. But at the last possible second, Gahl darted in and flicked the ball to the top shelf just under the crossbar to double the Terrier lead.
The BU attack benefited from a quick, precise transition game – an aspect of the Terrier offense that vanished in the second half.
“Our possession wasn’t good and we just didn’t find our frontrunners,” Roberts said. “In the two goals we scored, we moved the ball quickly, we went at them and didn’t let them set up. And in the second half we stopped doing that.”
Even Fairfield coach Carl Rees said the Terrier attack dominated his squad in the first half.
“I felt that the passing and the movement of BU in the first was exceptional,” he said. “And quite frankly, we couldn’t cope with it.”
Unfortunately for the Terriers, soccer games aren’t won in the first half. A tactical adjustment by the Stags coupled with an injury to BU sophomore defender Zach Kirby kept BU winless on the season.
After watching the home team run over, around and through his defense in the first half, Rees said he moved a man up from his four-man defense. The adjustment allowed Fairfield to have an extra presence on the attack and put BU on the defensive.
Senior Dave Thomas cut the Terrier lead in half in the 67th minute when he beat sophomore goalkeeper Chad Comroe, and freshman Sam Bailey tied the game after netting his first of two scores with only 7:15 left in regulation.
While the strategic switch by Fairfield certainly changed the pace of the game, Roberts said his team lost because of more fundamental problems.
“They just worked harder, were tougher than we were,” he said. “In the little things, like going in for a tackle, they were doing what we didn’t … You saw in the first half the parts where they just couldn’t stay with us. We just really did some silly things. We lost our focus.”
After playing sound team defense in the first three games of the season, the Terrier back line couldn’t hold it together after Kirby’s departure, and the Stags had no problem exploiting the weakness.
Comroe was left on his own on more than one occasion in the second half and overtime periods, and Fairfield scored the winning goal with one of the most basic principles of soccer.
“Just put it on the goal,” Rees said. “Make the goalkeeper make a save.”
Fairfield junior Alex Cunliffe fired a shot into the box and Comroe made a diving save, but the rebound bounced to junior Danny Atwell who found freshman Sam Bailey alone in front for the game-winning goal.
As the victorious Stags stampeded onto the Nickerson turf, Comroe and the rest of the Terriers could only watch in disbelief as another team celebrated a last-second victory at the expense of BU.
“This is a very difficult place to come and get a result, hence the explosion,” Rees said. “I actually got a bloody nose with the pile up. This was a great emotional lift for us.”
And while some might chalk the loss up to the young Terrier squad’s inexperience, Roberts said that as far as he is concerned, the grace period for the underclassmen is over.
“[Youth's] not an excuse now,” he said. “If they want to be players, they’ve got to play. You can’t say we’re young, just say we didn’t do the job. We had a chance to put the game away and we just didn’t do it.
“It’s a game we should have won and it’s a game we deserved to lose.”
