Just when the team was getting comfortable at home, it’s time to hit the road.
The Boston University women’s soccer team starts off a road trip this Thursday with a match against the University of Hartford before making the trip north to play the University of Vermont on Sunday.
The Terriers (8-5-0, 3-0-0 America East) go into the weekend games on a five-game winning streak, three of which have been at Nickerson Field. Even more impressive is the fact that BU did not allow a single goal through the stretch, a new school record for consecutive shutouts.
Its reward is a grueling trip that will see four consecutive games on the road. After the two games this weekend, BU will travel to New Hampshire and upstate New York as it continues its preparation for the America East playoffs.
“This is a tough stretch coming up,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman, “We go down on Thursday night, and we know they’re a good team that plays very well at home. We just have to get in there and get our routine and be ready to play at kickoff.”
Consistency will be key if the Terriers are to continue recording shutouts as well as keeping their conference record unbeaten. After gaining valuable experience playing ranked teams early on in the year, the Terriers have given their America East rivals barely any room to breathe on the field.
“In a lot of ways, conference opponents are still tough,” Feldman said. “We’ve seen higher ranked teams so we’ve learned a lot about ourselves. The minute you relax and think you get better than the other team or that you have figured it all out, you’re done. As soon as you go out on the field, you’re looking at a loss. We just have to keep having the proper respect for our opponent and the proper respect for how hard it is to be good every day.”
In their last match, the Terriers put an impressive all-around display during their 4-0 thrashing of Stony Brook University. Freshman midfielder Emma Clark led the way with a beautiful strike bound to the top-right corner of the net which left the Stony Brook goalkeeper helpless. Clark also added an assist on graduate student Lisa Kevorkian’s second half goal.
“Coach has been telling me to be more aggressive and take people on in the final third,” Clark said. “That shot that I took was her saying it in my head. That assist, I knew that I wasn’t going to have a play on it but Lisa is always moving, so I set her up.”
In the first game of the road trip, BU will face off against the conference’s second-place team, Hartford (4-6-3, 1-0-2 AE). The Hawks have sandwiched a 1-0 victory over the University of Binghamton in between ties with Stony Brook and the University at Albany. They are led on the field by junior Breeanna Robinson, the team’s leader on offense with five goals and an assist.
Sunday’s tilt will be versus a Vermont (2-10-0, 1-2-0 AE) side that has largely been struggling this season. The Catamounts halted a 10-game losing streak with their 1-0 win over Binghamton last Sunday. A sputtering offense has largely kept the team at bay as Vermont has failed to score more than a goal in a game since August.
BU will take to the road in high spirits and should, on paper, be able to continue the winning streak. It will be interesting to see if the Terriers can maintain consistency after a few long bus rides.
“We’ve hit this period of our season where we start to believe on how we’re doing things and try to get better at it,” Feldmain said. “It doesn’t mean we won’t lose a game as we have some tough teams coming, but we have started to feel good about ourselves and our style.”
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