Practice makes perfect.
And after a full week of practice, the Boston University field hockey team will be looking to maintain its perfect home and America East records when it takes on the University of Maryland-Baltimore County Saturday afternoon on Jack Barry Field.
The Terriers will be looking to improve to 2-0 in conference play this year, after beating the University of New Hampshire, 3-1, Sept. 30 to open their conference schedule in style.
“We have to take care of conference play,” said BU coach Sally Starr. “It’s our ticket to the NCAA Tournament. We also want to host the tournament, and you almost have to go undefeated [to do that] with the way Albany and Vermont are playing.”
BU will also be looking to improve on its flawless home record this season. The Terriers are 4-0 so far this year at Jack Barry Field, with their most recent win coming in impressive come-from-behind fashion against the University of Virginia. The Terriers are 12-1 at home dating back to last year.
UMBC will be coming to Boston looking for its second win of the season-and its first in America East play. The Retrievers are just 1-9 on the year, with their only win coming at home against St. Francis University. The Retrievers have lost four straight games and will be hungry to end the Terriers’ four-game winning streak.
UMBC has struggled in the America East since joining the conference in 2003. The Retrievers have never registered a win in conference play, and after their loss to Vermont Sept. 30. They are now 0-19 in conference play since joining the league. That only gives them extra motivation to end the Terriers’ home winning streak.
“We have to match their intensity,” Starr said.
The Retrievers are a young team, with five freshmen and only seven returning starters on their roster. The team also has a new coach in an attempt to start fresh. And UMBC would love to do just that against the favored Terriers Saturday.
“They don’t have a great record, but I really respect their new coach,” Starr said. “I’m expecting them to start doing some good things with their new coach in the second half of the season.”
If the Terriers hope to continue their winning streak, they will need to contain returning all-conference players and senior co-captains Julie Moore and Kristi Troster. The two are first and second on the team in shots and are tied for the team lead in goals.
“We need to be disciplined defensively,” Starr said. “I think they will try to defend with as many numbers as possible and counterattack. We need to capitalize on scoring opportunities and get better quality shots. We’ve been too complacent to take worse shots.
“We should have a lot of offensive opportunities,” she said. “We also need to convert on our corners.”
BU will be hoping to match the success it had in its lone tilt last year against the Retrievers, when the Terriers traveled to Baltimore and defeated UMBC 6-0 on a rain-soaked field.
In that game, senior forward Amy Seaman had the first two goals, and nothing would help her get back from her nagging injury better than another two goals this Saturday.
The Terriers will have had a week off since their last game. The Terriers were supposed to play Brown University the day after their win over UNH, but poor field conditions in Rhode Island led to the game being cancelled.
“The field conditions were dangerous,” Starr said. “It would have been like running on a waterbed.”
Because of the rainout the Terriers have had plenty of time to practice.
“We’ve had some excellent practices,” Starr said. “We’ve worked on fitness, technical ability, fundamentals, decision making and going hard after balls. We’ve worked on being aggressive and smart.”
After their match against UMBC, the Terriers have another long break before finally playing again a week later at Vermont. But from there the schedule gets tough. The Terriers finish out their regular season with seven games in a 15-day stretch from Oct. 14 through Oct. 28. But Starr is not concerned with the team building up any rust during this stretch.
“We’re working hard in practice to challenge them,” she said.
Hopefully that’s good enough to keep the Terriers perfect.