Believe it or not, Boston University women's soccer coach Nancy Feldman is not losing any sleep over the number of wins and losses her team has at the beginning of September. She's only concerned with one thing: seeing how her squad stacks up against its top-tier opponents from the August portion of its schedule.
"I really look at how we perform versus what the results are," Feldman said.
Four games into its toughest non-conference slate in program history, BU (2-2) finds itself right at the .500 mark, suffering defeats at the hands of then-No. 12 South Carolina University and then-No. 2 Stanford University, while racking up victories in convincing fashion over American University and the University of Washington.
On Aug. 20 at Nickerson Field, junior Lolly Holland's late strike in the 82nd minute gave the Gamecocks (3-1) the 1-0 win. With only five seconds remaining in regulation, the Terriers seemed to tie the game when graduate student Lisa Kevorkian, a transfer from the University of California-Berkeley who decided to use her fifth year of eligibility to suit up for BU, found the back of the net. However, she was called offsides by just a few inches, and the goal was waived off.
Two days later at Nickerson, goals from freshman Sydney Payne and senior Christen Press in the 16th and 22nd minute, respectively, gave the Cardinal (2-0-2) the early 2-0 advantage. But 14 minutes later, Kevorkian cut the deficit to one when she side-footed a cross from senior tri-captain Corie Halasz into the bottom right corner.
"It felt great," Kevorkian said of her first collegiate goal. "I've been waiting to score against Stanford my whole life, so my heart just swelled when that happened."
BU had its own share of chances in the second half &- five shots on goal in the final 45 minutes of play &- but that's as close as the Terriers would get on the evening as they fell 2-1.
"Our goal to start this game was be in a position to win, be in a position by the end of the game to win it and to play like winners," Feldman said. "And I thought we accomplished both those tasks while we didn't win the game and since there aren't any moral victories in sports."
Friday night's performance versus the Gamecocks was the polar opposite of the Terriers' showing against the Cardinal, the 2009 national runners-up.
"Friday night, I was disappointed, and the players were too because I think we could have played better," Feldman said after BU's 2-1 loss to Stanford. "Right now, where we are in the season, we played as well as we could have."
Just like in the South Carolina contest, freshman goalkeeper Kelly King got the start, while junior keeper Alice Binns came in and played the entire second half. After the loss to Stanford, King and Binns talked about the competitive spirit between the both of them.
"The competitiveness in goalkeeping is very high but it's friendly competition," King said. "But we love each other."
"There's always competiveness, even with the starting players and the field players," Binns said. "But we get along a lot and we go out and practice together on our own just to help each other out."
Feldman hinted that there might not be a full-time goalkeeper this season and that both King and Binns could potentially share the netminding duties.
"This formula seems to be working," Feldman said. "Every year it's different. There may be two full-time keepers. There may be two starters. There may be three starters. It really is about who deserves to play, and right now, they both deserve to play."
After two narrow defeats to South Carolina and Stanford, BU faced American (0-4) at Nickerson on Friday in search of its first W of the year. Thanks to two goals from Kevorkian and another one from junior forward Tiya Gallegos, the Terriers posted their first victory of the 2010-11 campaign by beating the Eagles 3-0.
"I knew they were a tough team going in," said BU junior midfielder Katherine Donnelly of American. "They made the Patriot League championship last year, and I know they're a strong, fast team. We weren't taking them lightly going into it. We wanted to win after two hard losses."
With two consecutive home losses to ranked teams to begin the season, the Terriers appeared relieved to have recorded their first victory in three contests.
"We're pretty pumped," Kevorkian said. "We knew we had two challenges coming in early, and unfortunately, we couldn't pull off the wins. But this gives us some momentum and confidence going into Washington on Sunday night."
Before a crowd of 2,004 at Terrier Tailgate this past Sunday, junior midfielder Jessica Luscinski, freshman midfielder Emma Clark and sophomore midfielder Jessica Morrow each scored their first goals of the season to lead BU past Washington (2-1) by a score of 3-0.
Feldman has seen a lot of positives from her squad through those first four games, but there is still room for improvement going forward.
"They have a tremendous will and strength to fight and battle when it's tough and it's hard," Feldman said. "But we can possess the ball a heck of a lot better. We're showing a lot of willingness to move and do the work but our composure, our support angles and our movement all have to get better."
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