What’s in a name?
For the University of Buffalo men’s soccer team, apparently quite a bit. The Bulls (8-1) stampeded out of the gate with eight consecutive wins to start the season, led by a hard-charging offensive attack that averages 3.22 goals per game and 19 shots per game.
When Buffalo faces the Boston University men’s soccer team Sunday at Nickerson Field, the Terriers (3-4-1) will put a three-game unbeaten streak on the line against the high-octane Bulls.
In two wins and one draw, BU has not allowed more than one goal, and since a 5-0 shellacking at the hands of top-ranked Indiana University, the Terriers have held opponents to a paltry 0.75 goals per game.
Buffalo has five players with at least 11 points on the season. BU’s leading scorers, senior Sedrick Chin and freshman Neil Hlavaty, each have six.
BU and UB aren’t just opposites in spelling – the two teams represent two different styles of play, and Terrier head coach Neil Roberts said that the Bulls present an interesting matchup.
“They’re definitely an attacking team,” he said. “They have speed up front and they like to get behind you. That’s been a problem of ours and we’ll need to solve it. We were much better against [UMass-Amherst].”
In BU’s 3-1 against UMass on Wednesday, the Terriers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and the defense held for the rest of the game, allowing only one goal en route to a 3-1 victory.
And while BU also allowed only one goal against the University of Maine prior to the UMass game, the defense’s performance against the Black Bears was very different from its performance against the Minutemen.
Maine could have easily scored two or three goals without the performance by BU junior goalkeeper Zach Riffett, who made a number of one-on-one saves on Black Bear breakaways.
The Terriers will need another quick start against the Bulls if BU wants to stretch its current unbeaten steak to four games – Buffalo has outscored opponents, 22-1 in the second half this season.
Conversely, BU has been outscored, 6-4 in the second half during the 2005 campaign.
The Terrier attack will also have to do without the services of sophomore forward Roland Erlichman.
Roberts said that Erlichman will “definitely” sit out Sunday’s match with a hamstring injury suffered during the UMass game.
Erlichman, last year’s leading scorer, had gotten off to a slow start in 2005, failing to notch a single point in the first six games, but appeared to have recently turned the corner with an assist against Maine and a goal against UMass.
In his absence, the burden will fall on not just Hlavaty and Chin, but also players like freshman Dan Schultz, who scored his first collegiate goal against UMass and junior Paddy Ferriter, whose assist on Schultz’s goal gave him his first point as a Terrier.
Roberts said that Ferriter, Schultz and freshman back Paul Mignogna will need to contribute significantly off the bench.
“Especially playing Sunday to Wednesday, we need those guys,” he said. “It’s key to get Sedrick, Neil and Jarryd [Goldberg] off the field because they’ve been playing full games.”
The Terriers will also need another solid performance from sophomore Derek Puerta on the back line if junior Zach Kirby sits out Sunday like he did on Wednesday.
Puerta, the Most Improved Player on last year’s squad, filled in for Kirby, who had been nursing a leg injury since the team’s 1-0 loss to the University of Notre Dame on Sept. 9, according to Roberts.
BU didn’t practice on Thursday, so the coach said he wasn’t sure yet if Kirby would be available for Sunday’s game. While Roberts said that the decision to rest Kirby wasn’t made explicitly with an eye toward the conference schedule, he admitted that the team’s string of eight straight games against America East foes to close out the season was a factor.
“We made the decision to just get him as healthy as we can so that for the conference he’s 100 percent, or as close as he will be,” said Roberts. “Most players, most of the guys who play every day, aren’t 100 percent for the entire season.”
Regardless of what may have happened to the team up to this point in the season, Roberts said that the turnaround over the past three games has had a tremendous emotional and mental impact on the team.
“Everybody’s in a good frame of mind,” he said. “I think the guys are closer to finding themselves as a team. It hasn’t been easy.”
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