The No. 17 Boston University lacrosse team smothered conference rival University of New Hampshire (7-4, 1-1) in what was thought to be an America East championship preview. With the 10-4 win on Nickerson field yesterday afternoon, the Terriers (6-6, 2-0) bounced back from a two game losing streak and proved their prowess in the America East conference.
“We just knew that we had to make a change, and we did today,” freshman Danielle Etrasco said. “I think the scoreboard proves it. They had a fantastic game… they brought the fight and we fought back.”
BU made some minor offensive changes to help counter a strong UNH defense.
“We put a couple new looks in today because UNH has a certain kind of defense that we usually struggle with, and we did a better job today attacking it,” BU coach Liz Robertshaw said. “I don’t think there were major changes [in the attacking plan]. We literally just tried to get more people involved with the plays and know that when the UNH defenders were going to slide to double McKinley or double Traci, they were going to be open. We saw that they were at times&-Rachel Collins was a prime example of that.”
The rivalry between these two teams was prevalent for the game, especially with the Wildcats success so far this season.
The Terriers brought the intensity. By the end of the first half, the Terriers were on top 3-0 and senior goalkeeper Rachel Klein had made an impressive nine saves.
“I think the rivalry makes everything a top notch,” Etrasco said. “But every game is just as important whether it’s Binghamton or Duke… we had fantastic games against them. UNH is just the rivalry. UMBC on Saturday&-we’ll bring the same amount of intensity for that.”
In the second half, BU came out strong with textbook lacrosse attack. They snagged the first three draw controls and Etrasco netted two back-to-back goals within the first two minutes.
“It’s a lot of talk,” Etrasco said. “I tell them when I’m going, and they go with me, and we just see what happens. You just have to go hard.”
In the middle of the second half, BU gave up some solid opportunities with one too many turnovers, which led to two UNH goals. With 13 minutes left in the half after the second UNH goal, Robertshaw called a timeout.
Out of the break, the Terriers went on a 5-0 streak with goals from senior co-captain Traci Landy (3g), senior co-captain McKinley Curro (3g, 1a), junior Rachel Collins (1g), and freshman Kristen Mogavero (1g).
“Attack wise, we saw other people scoring,” Robertshaw said. “We needed to get Danielle on the board, not just McKinley and Traci. We had more people putting the ball in the back of the net and having confidence with the ball.”
In the second half BU controlled the draw nine of 12 times, which helped the attack to move forward.
“I think the draw control is huge,” Robertshaw said. “It’s something we have to work on a lot more. UNH is a great team on the draw and a couple times we got it and they checked it right out of our hands, so we need to do a better job of not letting that happen. I think the couple times that we got it, we pushed the fast break, or we could slow down the game and give our defenders a little bit more of a rest.”
The defense was led by great efforts from Rachel Klein with 15 saves.
“Defensively, the girls were on,” Robertshaw said. “We were really aggressive. I thought we came away with some great knockdowns. Rachel Klein had an amazing game, holding that team. Only allowing four goals against UNH is big.”
The defense was able to shut down Curro’s younger sister, UNH sophomore JoJo Curro, who leads her team with 19 goals.
The Wildcats did close the game with two goals in the final four minutes from freshman Jenny Simpson and junior Allie Duclos, but the game was already sealed.
The win puts the team on track to face a difficult in-conference schedule.
“I think it’s great for the team confidence,” Curro said. “We had some hard games in the beginning of the season, but by losing you learn so much… we know that we can hang with them [the big teams], so it’s brought us confidence going into the conference games.”
BU continues the conference match-ups when the girls take on UMBC this Saturday at 12 p.m.
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