After her team’s dramatic 2-1 comeback win over the University of New Hampshire yesterday, Boston University women’s soccer coach Nancy Feldman stopped to reflect on the scene at Nickerson Field.
“That will be a memory forever, won’t it?” Feldman said.
Feldman would have had a much shorter memory of yesterday’s game if it weren’t for the most dynamic scoring duo in BU women’s soccer history. The combination of Meghann Cook and Melissa Shulman hooked up for the game-tying goal with only 4:08 remaining in what could have been their last collegiate game – ever.
“As soon as Cook and I walked up to the middle circle [after UNH scored in the 85th minute], we looked at each other and were like, ‘We have to do it now,'” Shulman said.
Shulman and Cook did what they’ve done so many times for BU over the years – they delivered. Cook sent a perfect cross off a set piece into the middle of the box and Shulman rose with the moment, skying above her defender and heading the ball home.
When Shulman ended the game just six minutes later in overtime, it gave the senior striker eight goals and 18 points on the season. Cook, her classmate and fellow forward, upped her point total to 24 with her sixth assist of the season. The pair has been putting up points since they came in together as freshman in 2002.
Either Cook or Shulman has led the Terriers in scoring in all four of their years at BU, and they’ve both finished first and second, interchangeably, in scoring over the past three seasons.
Their 42 combined points in 2005 gives them a whopping 146 in their collegiate careers. That’s the most for any Terrier tandem that has played together for four years, surpassing Christen Dutchka and Stacey Schwartz, who combined for 135 points from 1995-98.
Individually, Cook and Shulman rank second and fifth in career points.
Cook’s 80 career points are second only to Deidre Enos’s 121. Shulman’s 66 place her fifth.
“They certainly get the glory moments,” Feldman said. “They want it so badly and to be able to keep their cool and composure in this craziness … I guess that’s what senior experience gets you.”
Shulman and Cook each said they had a good feeling when Cook’s cross was in the air that they were going to score.
“It was an unbelievable ball,” Shulman said. “I knew if it wasn’t me, then it was going to be someone else that got something on it.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
