Dalton becomes BU’s career goals leader

It took the Boston University lacrosse team only 25 seconds to get on the board in Saturday’s game against Harvard University at Nickerson Field. It took senior co-captain Sarah Dalton just over 10 minutes to score, but when she did, she tied BU’s program record for career goals. Five minutes later, Dalton found the back of the net again, tallying her 188th career goal and putting herself into the record books for good.

Dalton showed her creative side to get goal number 187. Junior McKinley Curro, who tallied eight points on the afternoon, passed the ball to Dalton, who spun around a Crimson defender and put the ball in the net at 10:22. Harvard kept Dalton quiet for the next five minutes until she struck again with 3:41 left to go in the half on an unassisted score.

The two goals put Dalton ahead of the previous leader, Lindsay Lewis (’06).

‘It’s awesome to break [that record],’ Dalton said. ‘Getting those two goals out of the way in the beginning of the game was big for me. I was kind of thinking about it. I’ve been on the website reading about it, and Lindsay texted me last night about it.’

Dalton entered her 2009 campaign ranked fifth on BU’s career goals list with 156. But Dalton, the Terriers’ leading scorer this season, now has an impressive 35 goals in eight games this season.

With exactly half of the season left to go, the sky is truly the limit for Dalton and her new career record.’

‘I’m thrilled that she broke that record, but I’m not surprised by it,’ BU coach Liz Robertshaw said. ‘She’s one of the best attackers I’ve ever coached, and she’s one of the best attackers I’ve ever seen. It’s something to be said that we’re only eight games into our season, and she’s already set that record. She’s really going to set the bar high.’

Dalton, an All-American and last year’s America East Player of the Year, is no newcomer to breaking records. During the 2007-08 season, Dalton set a new program record for single-season goals when she netted 71 tallies.

Dalton scored three more times on Saturday, bringing her career goal record up to 191. Although she’s clearly been a leader in the offensive category for the Terriers, Dalton is also proud of her accomplishments all over the field this year, on both offense and defense.

‘I’m playing more of a middie role this year, and I’m liking that,’ Dalton said. ‘This year is not really just about goals for me. I feel that I’ve contributed a lot more in other categories too, which I’m happy about. But the goals, they’re still coming for me.’