While the Boston University men’s soccer team struggled this season to score goals, anyone who saw yesterday’s game against the University of Vermont would never have known it.
The Terriers (8-6-3, 3-3-1 America East) exploded in the first half as the four graduating seniors led the way to a 5-2 win over the No. 1 team in the conference. Just minutes after being introduced for their last game as Terriers, the three offensive seniors (excluding goalie Matt Smith) contributed to the first three goals of the day, all of which came in the first 30 minutes.
Just 13 minutes into the game, senior back David Fahey received a perfect pass across the box from sophomore midfielder, and roommate, Federico Bianchi, and slammed home a shot in the lower right corner to put BU ahead, 1-0. The goal was the first of Fahey’s season, and came as a surprise to BU Coach Neil Roberts not because he was able to score, but because he finished with his left foot instead of his right.
‘Fahey usually uses his left foot for balance,’ Roberts joked, hinting that Fahey isn’t exactly ambidextrous. ‘But he put one in with his left foot; it was a nice shot in the side netting.’
Fahey’s goal was only the beginning of the BU offensive explosion in the first half. Fellow senior E.A. Carr took a corner from junior midfielder Andrew Dorman just 13 minutes later and deflected it perfectly into the box. Bianchi was in perfect position to put a head on it, and the Terriers were up 2-0.
Just four minutes later, the Terriers showed there was no letting up, as the third senior got his name in the boxscore. Dorman sent a free kick into the middle of the box, where senior Anthony D’Angelo was waiting to put a foot on it and flick the ball into the top corner of the net in the 31st minute.
Less than a minute later, junior forward Alan McNamara made a run up the left side and played a perfect cross into the box. In contrast to previous games, when great crosses and passes have gone unfinished, Dorman was in perfect position to one time the pass into the back of the net and give the Terriers a commanding 4-0 lead at the half.
The offensive outburst was bittersweet for Roberts, who knew all along that his team was capable of the scoring output it showed yesterday.
‘You have to wonder why we had those same type of chances the last four or five games, and we didn’t put them in.’ Roberts said. ‘You have to ask yourself why now? Obviously, there wasn’t as much on the line, who knows, but we finished, and we knew we could. We just put the chances away. In the first half we played extremely well.’
While the Terriers did allow two Vermont goals in the second half, they added one more as Dorman netted his team-leading sixth goal of the season and his sixth point of the day off a feed from Carr in the 70th minute.
The only Terrier senior not to register a point, and not surprisingly of course, was goalie Matt Smith. Smith, who entered the game sixth in the nation in saves, tallied four saves on the day.
While BU’s loss last week to the University of Hartford, combined with a few other conference results, ended all hopes for the America East Tournament, the Catamounts could have locked up the No. 1 seed in the tournament with a win.
But the 5-2 loss, combined with a 5-0 win by Northeastern University over the State University of New York at Binghamton, Vermont fell to No. 2 and will host Hartford on Sunday, while Northeastern will play the University of New Hampshire on Saturday in the other semifinal.
‘I mean we’ve never been in this situation, since I’ve been in charge, the situation where the last game we weren’t playing for something,’ Roberts said. ‘We didn’t know how anyone was going to respond. The one thing I’m proud of is that the response was good. We came to play, and we knew we were playing against the top team in the conference, and we responded well.’
While the Terriers have had many scoring chances in previous games very similar to those they had yesterday, the difference was someone always in position to finish the play and put the ball home. Roberts hopes that it was not the lack of pressure that caused the relaxed and dominant play, as he expects his players to be able to step up when the pressure is at its peak.
‘I don’t know if it’s that [the lack of pressure in yesterday’s game], hopefully not, because that’s part of this sport, doing it when it really matters most,’ he said. ‘I’d like to think that our guys are capable of that. We got the first goal, which made things a little bit easier and loosened things up a little bit. I hope it wasn’t because there was no pressure on this game.’
With the four seniors on their way out, the focus shifts to next season. Things will be different from this season, when the Terriers were the odds-on favorite and were the hunted team among the rest of the conference. According to Roberts, the Terriers will have to start over and figure out what needs to be changed to get back to the top of the league.
‘We have a young team, and we have our work to do,’ Roberts said. ‘We’re obviously in the bottom half of the league now.’
