The game of soccer is broken up into two halves. And although the Boston University women’s soccer team has played well in both, it’s what the Terriers have done in the latter 45 minutes – especially in recent games – that has put their opponents away.
When Lauren Erwin netted the lone goal in yesterday’s 1-0, conference-clinching victory over the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, it gave BU a 3-0 advantage in second-half goals over the past five games. “I don’t want to say we’re a second half team because I don’t want to be a second half team,” said senior back Susan Marschall. “I’d like to get it done in the first half.”
But BU has been icing teams in the second half lately. The Terriers also netted a goal in a the second frame to salvage a tie against Dartmouth College on Oct. 12 and buried one on Oct. 6 in their 3-0 victory over the University at Albany, while surrendering zero second-half tallies in that time.
In fact, you have to go back to the Sept. 29 rain game against the University of Maine to find the last time the Terriers gave up a goal in the last 45 minutes.
“We try to provide the team with some tactics [before the game],” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “But until they really can see and feel how the game is going, it takes some time to sort out how they can best attack, how they can best defend.”
Since a 2-1 win over UMass-Amherst on Aug. 28, BU has outscored its opponents, 8-2, in the second half.
“We realize that we don’t want to go to overtime, so we have to finish our chances,” said Erwin. “We just go after it more. We know we need the goal and there’s no time to waste once we get into the second half.” Feldman said that her team’s adjustments during halftime and the players’ patience during the first half lead to the team’s strong finishes.
“In the second half, we figure out what’s working,” Feldman said. “We stay pretty determined to just keep it together, not get discouraged and not get frustrated early on when we feel like we should be dominating.”
Feldman pinpointed a certain adjustment the Terriers made at halftime yesterday against UMBC. She said that because of the Retrievers’ strong play with the ball, the Terriers needed to send the ball up and past the UMBC defenders if they wanted to create scoring chances.
“What we needed to do today was exploit them into space,” Feldman said. “We recognized that in the first half. After halftime we started to do that and you could see it [working] right off the kickoff.”
Both Erwin and Marschall said the team played with much more fire after halftime because they realize they were running out of time to take control of the match.
“We realize that we have to be urgent, because we only have 45 minutes left in the game,” Marschall said. “We’d like to get it done in the first half, but it doesn’t always happen that way.”
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