BU boards ‘B’ line west

As the pairings for the 22nd Division I NCAA College Cup raced across the television screens at T’s Pub on Commonwealth Avenue Monday afternoon, the Boston University women’s soccer team could only sit and watch.

While the NCAA tries to keep teams close to home for first- and second-round games, there are no guarantees. For a team like BU, which has had the experience of playing in Colorado this season and at the University of Kansas in 2002, the sheer excitement of earning a postseason bid outweighed the difficulties of long-distance travel. In a certain sense, any game against any opponent would have been just fine.

But despite all the speculation, there really was no surprise, and though it took until the final four pairings to know for sure, BU is playing its first round NCAA Tournament game and possibly its second rounder just a few T stops away.

But first, Dartmouth College, a team the Terriers played to a 1-1 tie on Oct. 8, learned it would fly to Tallahassee, Fla. to face Florida State University. Then Princeton University, which beat BU 2-0 this season, found out it would travel to Virginia to take on Villanova University.

With only one sub-region left, BU head coach Nancy Feldman predicted the opponent and the site perfectly.

The Terriers will take on the University of Connecticut at Boston College’s Newton Campus Soccer Field Friday at 4:30 p.m.

In what is essentially a home game for BU, the Terriers hope to beat the No. 15 team in the country while trying to advance past the first round for only the second time in program history.

‘It’s not as glamorous, but I think it’s a lot better for everybody to be at home,’ Feldman said. ‘It would be fun to travel, but when you talk about preparing to win a game, it’s going to be a lot easier to be around here. We’ve been to BC and we have played on that field and we can shoot over for a practice on Thursday and still sleep in our own beds.’

The NCAA only seeds the top 16 teams of the 64-team field, and while BC garnered the No.15 seed and home field advantage in the first two rounds, Connecticut is seven notches higher than the Eagles in the most recent National Soccer Coaches Association of America/adidas rankings.

But the Huskies (10-5-3) are smarting from a 1-0 loss to Villanova in the Big East Tournament. Connecticut played a difficult schedule this year, going 2-2-1 against teams in the Top 25, also losing to the University of Hartford (7-10-3) and the University of Miami (9-9-1).

The Terriers (12-5-5) are making their third NCAA Tournament appearance thanks to a dramatic America East Tournament victory in penalty kicks on Sunday. Even though BC beat BU, 3-1, this season and a rematch looms in the second round if both schools win, Feldman’s only concern is to focus on Friday.

‘[Connecticut] is going to be rested and prepared they lost in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament, so they were very disappointed in that and I imagine they are going to be fired up,’ Feldman said. ‘[Connecticut] is going to be a tough challenge and if we get through, [we play] the winner of BC and Central Connecticut.

‘BC is a very good team, but you’re not playing Penn State, you’re not playing UNC and you’re not playing Santa Clara,’ she added optimistically. ‘It’s a winnable bracket, and it’s something we can shoot for to get out of the East.’

BU and Connecticut’s common opponents this year were Hartford and BC. The Terriers lost both of those games, while the Huskies went 1-1.

The University of North Carolina (21-0-0) received the No.1 seed in this year’s tournament, while the University of Notre Dame, the University of Florida and the University of California at Los Angeles were placed at Nos. 2, 3 and 4, respectively.