It may not exactly be Kobe vs. LeBron, but both the No. 13 Boston University lacrosse team and Yale University will feature two high-scoring award-winners in their matchup this afternoon on Nickerson Field.
The league announced on Monday that senior attack McKinley Curro was named America East Player of the Week after gathering nine points over two games for the Terriers (4-3) last week.
Seven of those nine points came in last Wednesday’s 13-9 win at Harvard University, where Curro scored a hat trick to go along with four assists. The seven points in the game were one below the career-high for the former Third-Team All-American.
Curro’s 2.57 points per game average put her ninth in AE in that category. She is the second Terrier to receive Player of the Week honors, behind sophomore attack Hannah Frey (12 points), who earned it two weeks ago.
On the other side of the field for the Bulldogs (3-4) will be recently named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week junior midfielder/defender Kaitlyn Flatley.
Flatley’s highlight of last week also came last Wednesday. After her first goal of the game gave Yale a 7-6 lead with 10:07 to go, Brown found a way to tie the game up with only four minutes left. Flatley, though, again came to the Bulldogs’ rescue, scoring with only nine ticks left on the clock to give Yale its first Ivy League win of the season.
In the team’s subsequent 7-5 loss to No. 4/7 University of Pennsylvania, Flatley picked up where she left off, netting the first two goals of the contest before adding another in the second half. She totaled six points over the course of the week.
Despite the accolades of the game’s offensive stars, this one could become a defensive struggle.
After moving from a full-time defender position to a spot in the midfield this season, Flatley still remains of Yale’s top defensive players. She leads her team in caused turnovers with 10 and is tied for the team lead in ground balls with 13.
The Yale defense as a whole only allows 8.57 goals per game, good enough for third in the conference behind Penn and No. 11/16 Dartmouth College, each of whom allow less than six goals per game.
For BU, the defense has been one of the recent strengths, said BU coach Liz Robertshaw, who has long sung her defense’s praises. The team has not allowed more than 10 goals in a single game and has allowed six or less in three separate games.
Junior midfielder Corcoran Downey and senior goalkeeper Rachel Klein in particular have been one of the most praised in the backfield.
“Rachel has that ability to calm the team down very well and that’s something we look to her,” Robertshaw said after the win over Harvard.
“We don’t want to put teams on the free-position line, but we know with Rachel, she can make those saves. She has kind of told the girls, “Hey, I can make the stops so it’s OK if you put them there. I’ll get it done.'”
“I think we came out and definitely stuck to our game plan,” Klein said. “Corcoran had an amazing first half. The shots that I did see, I just wanted to have their backs, so I think it was a complete defensive effort.”
Games Notes: BU defeated Yale 12-6 down in New Haven in their matchup last season. Attacker Traci Landy, then a junior, had five goals for the Terriers…Freshman midfielder Devon Rhodes leads the Bulldogs in points with 18 (13 goals, five assists)…The Terriers have been outshot 181-169 on the season but have outscored opponents 64-59 thus far.
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