After dropping a 1-0 decision at No. 11 St. John’s University Friday night, the Boston University men’s soccer team finally broke into the win column with a 4-0 rout of the University of Rhode Island yesterday at Nickerson Field.
Junior midfielder Tom Strackhouse led the way with his first two goals of the season, both coming in a 65-second stretch early in the second half against URI.
“It’s a relief,” senior captain Dan Schultz said of the team’s first win. “We’ve been playing well all season, but we just haven’t been getting the results. Hopefully, this will start a run for us.”
Junior forward Shaun Taylor got the scoring started in the seventh minute when he took a pass down the left side from freshman forward Stephen Knox, who was making his first collegiate start. Taylor juked to the right of a Ram defender and put the shot inside the far post for his first goal of the season.
“Knox is different than the other three guys we have up front,” BU coach Neil Roberts said. “He’s as quick with the ball as he is without it. I think once he really fits into the team he’ll open things up for other guys.”
BU (1-3-1) dominated play throughout the first half. The Rams (2-2) could not muster a single shot or corner kick in the first half and only got the ball across midfield a handful of times.
“We’ve been focusing a lot on not allowing easy goals,” Schultz said. “The first two games we allowed some pretty crappy goals. We’ve done a good job keeping the shots on goal down and limiting chances.”
Despite controlling the tempo, the Terriers could not solve URI’s four-flat defense, as BU was called for four offsides in the half. Thanks to a halftime adjustment, that changed.
“The big difference in the game was our guys in the second half recognizing that they were playing four-flat and taking advantage of that,” Roberts said. “With the speed of some of our guys, it was easy to get behind their defense as long as our guys were patient.”
In the 48th minute, sophomore midfielder Matthew Shea led Strackhouse through the defense with a pass that left him with only the keeper to beat. Strackhouse ducked URI goalie Chris Pennock and slid the ball into the empty net.
“I just saw the ball go through the defense and ran after it,” Strackhouse said. “Matt Shea laid it in beautifully, and I just thought, ‘I can’t screw this up.'”
Sixty-five seconds later, Strackhouse broke through the defensive line again and put a cross from sophomore forward Aaron O’Neal into the left side of the net.
“They were playing a flat back four,” Strackhouse said. “That allowed one offensive midfielder to run free. It was pretty easy to just run through them.”
Six minutes later, senior forward Jin Oh made it 4-0 when he collected a rebound on the right side of the box and buried it into an empty net.
The weekend didn’t start off on a high note. BU and St. John’s (4-0-1) battled back and forth for 73 minutes before Red Storm midfielder Ale Ivo scored on a free kick from the left side. The teams had six shots each in the first half, but the Terriers were outshot, 7-4, in the second half.
“Defensively, in the St. John’s game, we were very good,” Roberts said. “We made a huge mistake giving them a free kick, and that led to the lone goal. I thought we created good chances. We had two very good chances when the score was 0-0 and [goalkeeper Neal Kitson] made a real good save on one, and we didn’t take advantage of the other.”
