Terrier senior midfielder Kristen Mogavero has scored 19 goals this season.
Fresh off of a 20-goal outburst against the University of Vermont, the Boston University women’s lacrosse team will be looking to gain a crucial America East victory against Binghamton University Saturday afternoon at Nickerson Field.
The Terriers (4-6, 1-2 America East) have been hobbled with injuries on their defense and have been struggling to get in sync defending the cage, but they will face the Bearcats (2-8, 1-2 America East), who have struggled to put points on the board this year, having only scored double-digit goals in three games this season.
“Every single game matters for us, the team knows it,” said BU coach Liz Robertshaw. “They know that every single game is a huge game, and we’re going to look at it as such, where we have to go in and take it very seriously, and we want to get a win.”
In America East play this season, Binghamton ranks last in goals scored per game at 8.2. Leading the Bearcats in scoring is midfielder Katherine Hunsberger, with 23. She also leads the team in points with 23, having accrued no assists at this point in the season.
On attack, the Bearcats are stronger at maintaining possession, as they are currently ranked fourth in the conference in turnovers per game with 15.1. The Terriers are ranked last in the same category with 18 turnovers per game.
“Even though they’re a little lower in the ranks, they’ve played some really tight games against [the University of New Hampshire] and Vermont,” Robertshaw said. “So we’re going into it trying to follow our gameplan to the best of our ability.”
To begin the season, the Bearcats dropped five straight games before coming away with a victory against Siena College. Coming into Saturday’s game, they have lost two straight.
The Terriers will once again be looking to senior attack Danielle Etrasco to come up big on offense. She is coming off of a seven-goal game against Vermont (6-8, 1-3 America East) and is leading BU in all major scoring categories.
She has 47 points this season with 37 goals and 10 assists.
With Etrasco consistently seeing double and triple teams this season, senior midfielder Kristen Mogavero has been afforded numerous opportunities to score, and she has done a good job of taking some of the pressure off of Etrasco. Mogavero is second on the team in scoring with 19 goals this season.
The Terrier attack will be facing a defense that has had issues defending the cage this season. The Bearcats are currently last in the conference in goals against, with opponents netting 12.45 goals a game.
In the cage, BU will be facing goalkeeper Erin McNulty who, in 10 games, has a .438 save percentage and has made 78 total saves on 218 shots.
The Terriers will send out junior goalkeeper Christina Sheridan, who had a rough game her last time out against Vermont, giving up 17 goals. Sheridan is currently fifth in the conference with a .451 save percentage this season, but is 10th in the conference in goals-against average at 12 goals per game.
“We need to have better defense,” Robertshaw said. “We can’t be allowing 17 or 18 goals in a game, I don’t think it’s fair for our offense to have to combat that.”
On defense, the Terriers have been able to put pressure on opposing offenses consistently. They lead the conference with 10.4 takeaways on the year.
“There’s a huge challenge ahead of us to make sure that we end the season the way we want to do it and see if there is any chance for postseason play for us,” Robertshaw said. “If that’s going to happen, we have to take every single game like it’s the most important game of the year.”
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