Slip, knot

Soccer players will play in any kind of weather. They’ll play in rain. They’ll play in sleet. And they’ll play in 30 mile-per-hour winds.

Against the University of Maine on Thursday, the Terriers (5-4-3 overall, 1-0-1 America East Conference) took on all three of these conditions, not to mention a Maine team picked to finish near the top of the conference. But the weather in Orono, Maine won out, with the conditions stripping a victory away from BU and forced the game to end in a 1-1 tie.

And the Terriers were so close to a win. With BU clinging to a 1-0 lead at the end of the second half, sophomore goalkeeper Christina Reuter came out of the box to get a loose ball. But when she went to pick it up, the pounding rain caused her to lose her footing. As she did, the ball came loose and Black Bear forward Erin Corey kicked the ball into the net, tying the score.

“It was just a ball that got played through,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “The wet conditions played a huge part in the goal. The ball just passed through into the net. It was unfortunate. A bad, unlucky break.”

The goal was Reuter’s only miscue of the day – and she wasn’t really to blame. The sophomore was outstanding in goal against a potent Black Bear offense, accumulating five saves and protecting the Terrier net for all of regulation and both overtimes.

Reuter had to be the most aware during the second half and in the first overtime, when Maine had the wind at its back. Because of the intense winds, the two teams found themselves either leaning into the gusts or running with them.

“When you have the wind with you, you’re always kind of on the edge of your seat,” Feldman said. “But then you start worrying when you don’t have the wind. One mistake and you could eat it.”

In the first half, the Terriers had the wind at their backs and scored their only goal – a shot from just outside the 18-yard mark from senior forward Melissa Shulman in the 12th minute.

“That’s her third highlight goal of the season,” Feldman said. “She really put us in a position to win.”

Without that same wind at their back, however, the Terriers couldn’t play an aggressive offense and had to back up into a defensive shell. The team changed into a 4-4-2 shape on the pitch, dropping more midfielders back to help with Maine’s charging offense.

Led by junior back Erica Lee and senior midfielder Brooke Bingham, the defense stifled any Maine attack.

“We did a really a good job keeping the ball away from them and on the ground,” Feldman said. “We had to clear balls out of our zone and we had to work hard to do it to make sure nothing went over our heads.”

And while nothing went over the Terriers’ heads Thursday, the one unchangeable factor hanging over their heads was that they were only six minutes away from defeating their No. 1 contender on the road in a hostile environment.

But after it all, Feldman said she wasn’t disappointed with a tie. “I mean, we had led up until about six minutes to go in the game, so we could almost taste it, so that was disappointing,” she said. “But if you asked me before the game if I would have been happy with a tie against the No. 1 team in the conference in this kind of weather, I would have said yes.

“The only sad thing is that we weren’t able to play them on a beautiful sunny day and that way we could truly see who the better team is.”

This contest was the only time the two America East powers will meet this year, at least in the regular season. But as Feldman has said on numerous occasions, the last game is over and the Terriers will concentrate on their next match, which will be in the friendly confines of Nickerson Field against the University of Vermont.

Until then, the Terriers will sit on the fact that Mother Nature stole one from them – and forced a victory to literally slip out of their fingers.