One has to wonder if visitors ever consider not even bothering to make the trip. After all, that trip has proven to be a waste of time, not to mention gasoline, 34 of the last 35 times.
What the Boston University softball team has can hardly be called a home-field advantage anymore. It’s more like a home-field automatic win, and it really doesn’t seem fair.
“I think now we know we’re playing at home, we’re winning at home,” said BU coach Amy Hayes. “We just have this thing where this is our house and people don’t come in here and push us around. We’ve been able to back it up.”
The University of Maine was the latest team to come up short against the Terriers, as the Black Bears were unable to scratch out a run in the doubleheader at the BU Softball Field on Ashford Street. The pair of wins stretched the squad’s home record to 6-0 this year, to go along with 15-16 on the road and at neutral sites.
The home win streak was also extended to 15, dating back to last year, and the team’s home record was upped to 34-1 since the new facility opened in 2001.
The only loss came to Ivy League foe Harvard University a year ago, meaning the Terriers have never lost an America East game (24-0) at the complex.
After completing the season blanking of Maine, the Terriers moved their conference-leading record to 11-1 in America East play. Though the team doesn’t like to make any excuses, the only loss happened after a series that was supposed to be at home was moved to Stony Brook University’s campus due to weather.
“We were supposed to play here against Stony Brook and we had to go four and a half hours and play down there, and that’s frustrating,” Hayes said.
Apparently Mother Nature doesn’t like to see the Terriers with such an advantage — postponements and the moving of the Stony Brook series made Wednesday’s pair the first conference home games of 2003. Due to the constant inclement weather of New England, the home opener usually happens well into the year. This season, the first pitch at the BU Softball Field was also the first pitch of the season’s 19th game.
But such a grueling road trip only makes the homecoming sweeter. And now, BU has set another precedent for America East teams coming to Boston late in the year.
“That’s a testament to these girls, and they’re setting the standard for the kids that are going to be coming through this program later,” Hayes said. “And it’s an intimidating factor when you’re coming in here.”
Maine most likely thought about that intimidation during the four-plus hour trip down from Orono. They then boarded the bus on Ashford Street without a win or a run, inevitably thinking about it for the whole ride home.
Meanwhile, the Terriers got on the “T” or just walked back to their rooms with another pair of wins under their belts, one step closer to an America East regular season title.
Right now it appears the only thing standing in their way is the University at Albany. But the Great Danes finish the season with a daunting task: four games in the Terriers’ doghouse.
“They love to play at home,” Hayes confirmed. “It’s so nice not to have to travel on a bus or get in a plane, they just walk five minutes down from their dorm room and they’re at the field.”
They’ll make that five-minute walk to Ashford Street this afternoon to show off their home-field advantage to a team that won’t have to make much longer of a trip — the Boston College Eagles.
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