The Boston University men’s soccer team will aim to record its first win of the season when it travels to No. 11 St. John’s University tonight before hosting the University of Rhode Island Sunday at Nickerson Field.
St. John’s (3-0-1) marks the fourth straight nationally ranked opponent BU (0-2-1) has faced this season. URI comes to Nickerson with a 1-1-0 record.
Tonight’s game at Belson Stadium in Jamaica, N.Y., features a Red Storm team coming off a 1-1 tie against Boston College in the Adidas-Brown Soccer Classic and is looking to continue its unbeaten streak in its home opener.
“St. John’s is a very strong, very quick team, and they’re very good defensively,” BU coach Neil Roberts said. “They’ve played very good teams, so they’re experienced. They’re quick going forward, and they have a very good goalkeeper.”
The trick for the Terriers will be to control the ball and create and finish their scoring chances. Strong possession and solid defense yielded BU’s first positive result, a 0-0 tie against the University of Connecticut, last weekend.
“We hope that we can possess the ball like we did against UConn,” Roberts said. “St. John’s is more of a high-pressure team, so that’s going to be the difference. We just have to possess the ball and get the ball wide to get some opportunities.”
Defense will be key if the Terriers are to make a mark in the win column. Senior goalkeeper Hrafn Davidsson and senior back Dan Schultz will lead the BU defense against St. John’s and URI this weekend. Last week, Davidsson earned America East Player of the Week honors and was named the ECAC Co-Defensive Player of the Week.
“[Davidsson] is going to have to be big for us,” Roberts said. “Schultz [also] did a fantastic job last weekend. He was the man who really stopped the best player in the country. We did a pretty good job in the second half of not making a lot of mistakes [last weekend], and that’s what we’re going to have to do, collectively.”
The Terrier offense will shift a bit, as freshman midfielder Michael Bustamante will sit out the weekend due to injury. Bustamante has started all three of the Terriers’ games and has been a major contributor on offense. Roberts hopes the attack can continue to generate chances without Bustamante this weekend.
“We’ll have to have someone take his spot and do a good job,” Roberts said.
Sunday’s game will be the second part of a soccer doubleheader at Nickerson. The women’s team plays Northeastern at 1 p.m. before the men’s 4:30 p.m. game.
The Terriers’ luck has been short this season. Roberts hopes his team can turn the tide and earn a win in front of what should be another large Nickerson crowd.
“We want to get a win,” Roberts said. “We’ve played some really good teams and we’ve played them very well, but we haven’t gotten the win. In every game we’ve had the chance to win it, including the Connecticut game. It will be challenging, but what we want to do is play well and improve on what we did at Connecticut and hopefully get a win out of it.
“It’s really simple. We’ve got to try to score goals. It’s really that easy. We’re creating chances, we’ve just got to make sure we start putting some away.”
