With the University of Oregon traveling all the way across the country to take on the Boston University women’s lacrosse team Saturday, it only seemed fair that the Terriers should give their guests a proper welcome.
And just about every BU player seemed more than happy to help.
Eight different Terriers got in on the scoring action Saturday, as BU attacked the Ducks from every angle and charged forward with a 19-8 victory at Nickerson Field.
Not that there weren’t plenty of individual stars, too.
Mary Beth Miller led the way, racking up three assists to move into first place on BU’s all-time assist list. The senior attacker also tacked on a goal of her own to finish the game with four points.
“She’s done an amazing job as our quarterback this year,” said fellow senior Lindsay Lewis. “The assist record goes to her and she well deserves it.”
And, as usual, no one benefited from Miller’s assists more than Jenny Hauser. The sophomore phenom led all scorers with six goals, reaching 50 on the season. Hauser paced a 19-goal Terrier onslaught for a team that has now scored a combined 39 goals in its past two games.
“It’s great to have a player like Jenny on your team, but it’s also hard because you do expect her to come out and have a game like this,” said BU coach Liza Kelly. “I think there are other people that are capable of putting up those same numbers, and I think when we really start to find our game and start rolling, we’ll have more than just Jenny scoring that many goals in a game.”
But if scoring parity is what Kelly is after, then Saturday was certainly a big step in the right direction.
Hauser and Miller were joined by six other Terriers on the score sheet, including Lewis, who netted four goals, and Lauren Morton, who pitched in with three. Six Terriers had multiple-point games, extending an offensive explosion that began with a 20-2 rout of Binghamton University last Wednesday.
And the multi-faceted attack bodes well for the future prospects of a BU team that has won four straight and eight of its last nine.
“It’s great to be able to know that you can’t just faceguard Jenny, and you can’t faceguard me or Mary,” Lewis said. “You have seven people on attack that are contributing and you have seven people that are threats with the ball. It’s great for our attack to be able to spread it out like that.”
But for all the offense, the game was by no means a complete rout — although it certainly started out that way. After BU and Oregon both put two quick goals on the board in the first four minutes, the Terriers proceeded to tear off seven straight on a run that spanned over 17 minutes of the first half.
Miller started the spurt just under five minutes into the game, taking an Angie Martin pass and quickly spinning and shooting past Oregon goalie Anna Poponyak. Miller returned the favor three minutes later, assisting a Lewis goal from behind the net to make it a 4-2 game.
But after BU’s run ended, the game suddenly took a turn for the worse. The Ducks and Terriers traded a pair of goals late in the first half, before Oregon came out firing with three straight goals to open the second frame, prompting an angry sideline speech from Kelly.
“I can’t repeat what was said, I don’t think you can publish what was said,” Kelly said, laughing. “I just told them they were better than the way they were playing. They had to have more respect for their opponent to play a little bit harder, and I think that they came out and played with a lot more fire. They got the ball back a couple times after losing possession, and that’s what they needed to do: to work harder for 60 minutes and not just be comfortable with a lead.”
The Terriers certainly responded, reeling off five straight goals to open the margin back up to nine and effectively end Oregon’s chances. And in line with the theme of the day, four different Terriers got in on the run, with Hauser being the only BU player to net two during the span.
“That’s what we should have, I think we should have that every day,” Kelly said. “I think we have a lot of people that have the potential to step up and score. Sometimes it’s just getting one under their belt in a game for them to have multiple goals. I thought the attack did a really nice job of looking for each other.”
But the Terriers certainly did not play flawlessly, and Kelly still believes her team needs to play with the same intensity against all teams, both ranked and unranked. That belief takes even more precedence with a relatively easy stretch of the schedule on the horizon before the Terriers take on perennial league rival the University of New Hampshire to close out the year.
“I think the unfortunate side of it is for this team right now, they’re playing an unranked team,” Kelly said. “I think they have to get used to playing Georgetown, Binghamton and Oregon at the same level.”
The Terriers next take the field Wednesday against the University of Vermont for the first of four straight conference games to end the regular season.
