Keely Anderson and her Terriers must hold off an offensive Retreivers team on Saturday Dave KauffmanIf Wednesday’s 16-12 win over Boston College taught the Boston University women’s lacrosse team anything, it’s that the Terriers are fallible.
Despite racking up 16 goals in their fourth straight win, the Terriers struggled through a first half that forced them to claw back from behind – something they haven’t needed to do at all during their streak.
And with their second league game at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (5-4, 1-0 America East) looming this Saturday, the Terriers (6-2, 1-0 AE) will be in trouble if they take the match lightly.
“I think UMBC is right up there,” said BU coach Liza Kelly. “In all honesty, we need to respect every opponent this year. We need to come out strong every game.”
That’s exactly what BU didn’t do against the Eagles on Wednesday, letting its crosstown rivals jump out to a lead thanks to three first-half goals off free position shots — a direct effect of the Terriers’ season-high 33 fouls in the game. Their previous high had been 25 in a win against the University of North Carolina three weeks ago.
Cutting down on that number will be imperative if BU has any designs on stopping a Retriever offense that is averaging almost 14 goals per game.
Unlike many of the teams BU has seen this season, UMBC relies on scoring output from its whole roster. Kelly Fiorani leads the way for the Retrievers with 30 points, including 22 goals on the year, but three other Retrievers have over 20 points and another three are in double digits.
“They play more of a freelance offense, so that will be a challenge,” Kelly said.
And though the same can’t be said about a Terrier attack that relies on four main scoring threats — Jenny Hauser, Lindsay Lewis, Mary Beth Miller and Sarah Dalton — BU has done an even better job on the offensive end. The Terriers have reeled off double-digit goals in each of their past four games, and are averaging 15 goals per contest during that span.
Hauser in particular has been on fire lately, racking up nine points against BC to tie BU’s single-game record for the second time this season.
“I think our attack is definitely going in the right direction right now,” Kelly said after the BC game. “Had we done a better job in the first half, playing better defense, I think our attack would have had even more opportunities. I expect other people to step up, but I think our attack did their jobs today, definitely.”
But that last issue — that of other people chipping into the attack — is something the Terriers will be stressing against UMBC. After Dalton added a hat trick of her own to Hauser’s nine-point performance Wednesday, BU’s four leading scorers have now accounted for 114 of the club’s 147 points this year — or over three quarters of its total offense.
“I think we’re doing some nice things, but we really have four people doing the majority of the scoring,” Kelly said. “The people coming off the bench need to get more involved.”
The Terriers will need that added offensive output as they try to win away from home for the third time this season. BU’s four-game winning streak has come entirely within the confines of Nickerson Field, where the Terriers have now won 18 straight.
And this season in particular the Terriers have struggled away from home, averaging almost five fewer goals per game than they do at Nickerson.
Breaking that streak against UMBC — one of the better teams in the conference this season after finishing in fourth a year ago — would be a key in proving that the past four games were just a preview of what the Terriers expect to accomplish for the rest of the year.
“I think that we still have a lot of room to improve,” Kelly said. “I think that our best lacrosse is still in front of us.”
