In a weekend when the Boston University men's soccer team was outscored 6-0 over two games, it's easy to gather that the Terrier offense was unable to do its job and put the ball in the net. But what really destroyed BU's chances this weekend was a series of defensive lapses that began late in the first half of each game and proved to be insurmountable.
At No. 5 Boston College on Friday, the Terriers dominated play for the most of the first half, outshooting the Eagles and repeatedly threatening to score. But with just over 10 minutes left in the half, BC midfielder Patrick Chin found midfielder Conor Fitzpatrick wide open on a throw-in about 30 yards from the net. Fitzpatrick, free of defenders, received the ball easily and fired an uncontested shot over BU redshirt freshman goalkeeper Brandon Briggs for the Eagles' first goal.
What followed can only be described as a massive defensive collapse.
By the end of the half, BC had a 4-0 lead, gained through turnovers, further failure to mark by the BU defenders and Briggs's first shaky performance of the year.
"I thought the first 35 minutes of the BC game were very good, and then we kind of lost our focus," said BU coach Neil Roberts. "I think the two quick goals shook us, and that kind of threw us off."
The pace of Sunday's game was slower, as both the Bears and Terriers took a conservative approach to the first half, and neither team put a shot on goal until BU junior forward Stephen Knox set up senior forward Aaron O'Neal in the 20th minute. O'Neal's header on net turned out to be one of the Terriers' best offensive chances of the night.
Less than two minutes before halftime, Brown goalkeeper Paul Grandstrand sent a goal kick deep into BU's defensive territory. Two Terrier defenders, in an apparent miscommunication, converged on Brown forward T.J. Popolizio, who was able to redirect the ball around both of them and into the lower right corner of the net.
"The first goal we gave up was totally against the play," Roberts said. "We had a guy going up to the ball, we had our own guy knock him off the ball and we just allowed them to create the goal. That's just poor play on our part."
In the second half, the Terriers came out aggressively, pressuring Brown in the midfield in an effort to create chances. That eagerness backfired at 50:48, when Brown midfielder Jay Hayward found midfielder Bobby Belair cutting toward the net, unchecked by defenders and set him up with a high pass that Belair one-timed past Briggs for a 2-0 lead.
The Terriers continued to control and move the ball relatively well, and junior midfielder Michael Bustamante tried several times to press forward with Knox into Brown's defensive end. But the speed and intensity of Bustamante and Knox, without support from the rest of the midfield, were no match for the well-positioned Brown defenders who were already set up back in front of their net.
"We know they are a very, very good defensive team," Roberts said of Brown. "I don't think we won our battles enough offensively. You've got to beat somebody, and to be able to do that, you have to go after them quickly. And we didn't go after them quickly enough when we had the opportunity to, so we let them set."
Brown spent most of the game setting up remarkably well on defense, particularly on the Terriers' nine corner kicks.
After a chance for junior midfielder Ben Berube in the first half, the Terriers didn't create a single real scoring opportunity from a corner kick for the rest of the game, largely due to the fact that the Bears packed eight or nine players into the box each time and shut down any hope BU had of making passes through the middle.
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