The land of no taxes and cheap(er) liquor was cruel to the Boston University women’s soccer team this weekend.
The Terriers fell to Dartmouth College on Sunday and the University of New Hampshire on Friday in a pair of 1-0 contests played in New Hampshire.
The losses dropped BU’s record to 4-7-1. More significantly, the loss to New Hampshire left BU at 1-1 in America East Conference games.
Freshman forward Christina Ferraris scored at the 61:51 mark for Dartmouth on Sunday to give the Big Green all the scoring they would need. Junior keeper Jessica Clinton kept busy on the day, making 11 saves, while the Dartmouth keepers made six combined.
Despite putting 10 shots on net, the Terriers could not solve New Hampshire keeper Kristin Ouellete. Wildcat forward Chiara Best scored the only goal of the game 8:48 into overtime to give the Wildcats their first victory over the Terriers since 1996.
Clinton made five saves for BU, but was unable to stop Best, who maneuvered around the defense and Clinton to put a shot in the open net.
The two games continued a disturbing trend with BU unable to find the net. In six of BU’s seven losses, the team has been shut out. Through twelve games, BU has only nine goals, and the lack of offense has been one of the major reasons for what has been a tough season thus far.
The team has struggled to cope with the injury of sophomore forward Melissa Shulman, who has been redshirted, and the graduation of forward Nicole Soules, as well as the graduation of midfielder Teresa Petruccelli, who ranks second on BU’s all-time assist list with 19 and seventh in scoring overall with 39 points (10 goals). In addition, sophomore midfielder Rebecca Beyer, who scored nine goals and added four assists to lead the team in scoring last year, has not shown the same offensive prowess thus far, with a goal and two assists to her credit. So far, only freshman forward Meghann Cook and senior midfielder Allison Merkle have scored multiple goals, three and two, respectively.
After being picked as conference favorites in the preseason, BU has struggled to live up to expectations against a difficult non-conference schedule. But with America East games looming, the Terriers must show better than they have, or they will have difficulty three-peating as conference champs.
BU’s next game is a conference matchup at Nickerson Field on Oct. 11 against the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Stony Brook is currently 2-7-2 (0-0-1 America East).