It happens all the time, you just never want it to happen to your team.
It, in this case, is being the first to lose to a winless team, which is exactly the situation the Boston University women’s lacrosse team will find themselves in when they face the Hofstra University this afternoon at 4 p.m.
The Pride are 0-4 on the year and have lost their four contests by an average of 5.75 goals per game. Meanwhile, the No. 10 Terriers (2-1) are coming off an uplifting 7-6 victory over the now-No. 8 University of North Carolina and are playing the last of a four-game road trip.
“I think [Hofstra] is a very intense team. In some respects I would compare them to us as a very emotional team where when things are going well for them, they really get up and celebrate the little things,” said BU coach Liza Kelly. “I also think that being 0-4 makes them very dangerous too, and they’re not going to be 0-4 all season. Now that they’re back home and it’s a doubleheader with the men, they will be even more up for the game.”
There’s no doubt the Terriers will be up for the game as well, because they can’t let what happened to them against the College of William ‘ Mary happen again (a 12-10 upset).
“I think that hopefully we learned a lesson from William ‘ Mary, that you can’t look forward to your next opponent; you have to play in the moment and take care of business on every given day,” Kelly said.
Taking care of business this afternoon will involve shutting down Hofstra’s two strongest players.
“No. 6 Becky Thorn and No. 11 Kimberly Hillier. Two very talented attackers, Becky is in the midfield and really runs the show in transition as far as draw controls or getting the ball in clear and getting it all the way down,” Kelly said. “They both are good shooters and they just go really hard to the goal cage. The good thing about that though is that they really are two players doing most of the work for the team, so if we can key in on those two players I think we can do a good job defensively.”
Hillier leads last year’s Colonial Athletic Association champions in points with 10 (6 goals, 4 assists), while Thorn is ahead of the pack in shots (24) and draw controls (13).
Much like BU shut down freshman star Kaytlin McCormick in a 16-6 victory over UMass-Amherst, the Terriers should have no problem containing the Pride attack. A pivotal component of the Terriers’ successful defense has been the play of senior defenseman Lindsay Lewis.
“Lindsay’s been great. She’s always been a very consistent player for us. She works hard and she’s always up there in stats, whether it’s goals or ground balls or caused turnovers,” Kelly said. “She’s definitely a workhorse and I think she’s very much an emotional leader for us.”
Another emotional and physical leader for BU is sophomore Jenny Hauser, who was bothered by the flu for the past week, but should be back to full strength against Hofstra.
“She’s feeling better,” Kelly said. “We had a couple more people get sick on Sunday, but hopefully we’re getting it out of our system.”
Hopefully something that hasn’t left the Terriers’ system is their ability to depend on sophomore goalkeeper Jenna Golden to make key saves.
“I think she’s doing a great job, but I think that in any position we really try and promote how you play the day before the game and in that game, and that’s going to determine whether it’s your spot or not,” Kelly said. “We’ve got Molly Collins who came in off the bench for us against William ‘ Mary and ended up starting for us against UNC, and we really try and spread that lesson to the team, that [the spot] is yours to earn.”
So far, Golden has done a good enough job to keep her spot, most recently being awarded the America East Defensive Player of the Week for March 13.
In planning for today’s match-up, BU coaches mulled over different plans for the team’s trip to Hempstead, N.Y.
“We really debated whether go down to Hofstra [yesterday night] and stay in a hotel or drive tomorrow,” Kelly said. “We ended up deciding to go down and back [today], one, because it has been a long road trip, and two, just sitting in a hotel room all day isn’t really conducive to getting on your feet and playing a game, so hopefully this is the right decision.”
