Lacrosse, Sports

Offensive woes doom Terriers in overtime loss against UMBC

Opening America East play for the final time, the Boston University women’s lacrosse team fell to the University of Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers 7-6 in a heartbreaking overtime loss Saturday afternoon at Nickerson Field.

While the Terriers’ (2-5, 0-1 America East) defense was tenacious and stout throughout the game, it was lack of execution on the offensive side that doomed BU against the Retrievers (7-2, 1-0 America East).

“It was a disappointing game,” said BU coach Liz Robertshaw. “It was a very poor offensive showing for us. Defensively it was a great showing. You know, to hold any team to seven goals, I think is great.

“From our attacking perspective, there were too many dropped balls, too many missed opportunities, and we were a little too casual attack-wise.”

The Retrievers opened the scoring with a goal by freshman Kris Coppolino four minutes into the game. The score remained 1-0 for almost 10 minutes, until BU junior attack Elizabeth Morse scored off of a pass from freshman midfielder Ally Adams to tie the game up at one.

Seven minutes later, the Terriers took the lead when senior attack Danielle Etrasco found the back of the net for her team-leading 19th goal of the season. A little more than a minute later, Morse scored her second goal of the game to put the Terriers up 3-1.

Despite multiple attempts by the Retrievers, UMBC could not get anything past the BU defense for the final nine minutes of the first half, as BU entered halftime with a 3-1 lead.

The Terrier defense was impressive in the first half, allowing only 7 UMBC shots during the first 30 minutes.

Despite taking the lead, the Terriers also suffered a tough loss, as senior defenseman Monica Baumgartner suffered an apparently severe injury in the first half. The injury, which appeared to be a leg/knee issue, forced Baumgartner to be placed on a stretcher and taken off the field in an ambulance.

Despite the tough injury, Robertshaw quickly got her team refocused on the game during the injury timeout.

“[I told them] you just have to focus on your game,” Robertshaw said. “You have to focus on what you do next. I love Monica, but it’s a team and [freshman defenseman] Remy Nolan did a great job going in and playing for her.”

In the second half, BU scored the next two goals, both by Etrasco, to give the senior a hat trick on the game and the Terriers a 5-1 lead. UMBC later scored two goals to cut the lead down to three, but BU sophomore attack Jenna Boarman netted a goal to give the Terriers a commanding 6-3 lead with 16 minutes remaining to play.

Despite the three-goal lead, UMBC went on a three-goal run, scoring its final goal with just 24 seconds left in the game to tie the score at six and force overtime.

In overtime, the score remained tied until UMBC junior Shannon Harkey scored off of a free-position shot with three seconds remaining to give the Retrievers the win.

While the Terriers had many opportunities to score in overtime, Robertshaw said they just could not execute at the right times.

“We tried to isolate some people in the crease They were open and got the looks, but they dropped the ball,” Robertshaw said. “ We also looked to move the ball, knowing that they were a man down at times, so we just wanted to get some scoring opportunities. Again, we had those looks but we didn’t have people shooting the ball.”

BU was outshot by UMBC 28-20. BU also finished the game just 10-21 in clear attempts.

Junior goalkeeper Christina Sheridan was very impressive in the contest, finishing the game with 13 saves and helping BU hold UMBC to just one free-position goal out of eight attempts.

While the Terrier defense was certainly encouraging, Robertshaw said that there is much work to be done on offense.

“You hold a team to fewer than 10 goals — that’s what the gameplan is,” Robertshaw said. “But you can’t win games scoring six goals. You’re just not going to win it.”

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