PISCATAWAY, N.J.- Last year, the fate of the Boston University women’s soccer team wasn’t sealed until the last three minutes. This year, it was determined well in advance – about six minutes after halftime – when Boston College’s Kelly Henderson scored off a corner kick to cap the Eagles’ 3-0 win in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Friday, and effectively end a Terrier season that had seen BU ranked as high as 10th in the national polls.
“It’s the toughest thing in the sport,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “You’d rather compete for 90 minutes and have it be a battle. There’s definitely a level of discouragement.”
Feldman’s squad lost to BC, 1-0, in the second round of the tournament last year when Tara Luciani scored in the 88th minute of play, sending the Terriers home for the year. And while Friday’s loss wasn’t as gut-wrenching, it certainly was just as heartbreaking – especially for the team’s four seniors.
“It’s always tough to lose to BC,” said one of those seniors, co-captain Lauren Erwin, “especially since they eliminated us last year too.”
Erwin, along with midfielder Paula Moniz, defender Erica Lee and goalkeeper Stephanie Dreyer, saw their collegiate careers first threatened late in the first half when Kia McNeill buried a Gina DiMartino rebound past Dreyer in the 38th minute.
After the game, Feldman said that she thought her team was too confident – even cocky – coming into a game with its biggest rival.
“It affected every part of our game and how tough we were defensively and how much pressure we applied,” Feldman said. “It affected our ability to work to keep the ball, and that is it in a nutshell.”
It didn’t make it any easier that the Terriers had beaten BC earlier in the season, winning 1-0 in overtime in the season opener at Nickerson Field on a Farrell McClernon game-winner.
McClernon, who scored a team-high seven goals (including three game-winners) this season, was held without a shot on goal Friday, epitomizing the overall lack of pressure from a Terrier attack that notched just four shots all game.
“If you look at the tape in the first game, we pressured them and we were the instigators of the aggressive play,” Feldman said. “[Today] we had to be better. We had to be sharper.
While the offense had been spread evenly and adequately throughout the season, it was the defense that was the staple of this year’s Terrier team. Entering the contest, BU was ranked No. 13 in the nation with a 0.53 goals-against average, backed by 13 shutouts in only 21 games.
Dreyer particularly was stellar, sporting a 0.38 GAA – good for fourth in the nation – to go along with 12 shutouts and an .877 save percentage.
But stats meant nothing to BC on Friday. The Eagles nearly sextupled the Terriers’ season GAA with the three goals.
“We were being a little less aggressive defensively, because we were thinking, ‘I don’t want to get beat,'” Feldman said. “I think we got passive defensively.”
That passiveness led to the Eagles’ second goal, at 49:12 of the second frame. Once again it was McNeill doing the scoring, this time on a brilliant individual effort that saw her weave through a flurry of BU defenders before depositing a right-footed shot past an approaching Dreyer.
“We didn’t play very well 1-v-1,” Dreyer said. “We played well selectively. Erica Lee played a great game. Liz Speck had some great plays. But we didn’t play well as a team, and that’s what you need to do to win.”
Once Henderson made it 3-0 two minutes later, it became apparent that any dreams of the second round for BU were taken off life support and put to rest, ending a 2006 season that made national noise, the loudest after a 1-0 win over then-No. 3 Santa Clara on Sept. 15.
Now, with the season over, the underclassmen have a mission in store for them, according to Feldman.
“We have work to do,” she said. “In order to take the next step in our program, there’s more work for our players to do. I think there’s no better way to show it or describe it than what we saw here today.
“There’s a way for us to go and that’s how were gonna approach developing this program.”