The Boston University women’s soccer team captured its fourth straight America East regular-season championship with their 2-0 victory over University at Albany. The win assured BU home-field advantage throughout the playoffs as it tries to gain the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
The Terriers (13-5-0, 7-0-0 AE) have cruised to their undefeated conference record in style. BU has yet to allow a goal in conference competition, racking off 10 straight shutouts that have totaled 918:02 minutes of scoreless play by the opposition. The streak has now reached sixth all-time in all of NCAA women’s soccer history.
“It’s harder to be consistently at the top than it is to be a one-time champion,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “Everyone is gunning for you, and we haven’t slipped up too much. We’ve pretty much stayed focused. We were pick number one for the regular season in the early season poll and everyone has brought their best game.”
Albany (8-7-2, 3-2-2 AE) came into the match as the best hope to break off the Terriers’ undefeated season. The Great Danes five-game unbeaten streak was finally halted as they fell to fourth place in the conference.
Early on, Terriers controlled the majority of play as they had done in most of their other conference wins. A lucky break gave the Terriers the lead as an Albany defender was called for a handball inside the box with four minutes to go in the first half. Graduate student forward Lisa Kevorkian calmly slotted the ensuing penalty kick into the goal for her conference-leading 13th of the season.
In the second half, BU slowed the game down to a crawl. Albany saw almost no opportunities to get an equalizer and seemed to lose their will to keep up a winning effort.
A late goal ensured the victory for BU as Kevorkian made a cross across the box that was settled by junior midfielder Jessica Luscinski. Fellow junior Tiya Gallegos then took an excellent volley from the edge of the box that found its way into the upper section of the net. The goal marked the sixth of the year for Gallegos.
The stifling Terrier defense held Albany to only three shots all game, only one of them needing a save by a Terrier goalkeeper. In turn, BU launched 17 shots on goal&-eight of them on net. The Terrier backline left almost nothing to chance, keeping away potential lucky bounces by not allowing a single corner.
BU will finish off the regular season Sunday against University of Maine.
“These matches [against Albany and Maine], to me, are very important to keep playing at a high level,” Feldman said. “We need to be in matches that are hard and competitive and fast to get us ready. We need to make sure we go into the tournament playing our best soccer.”
Although there will not be anything to play for in that game, Feldman stressed the fact that she is not focusing on the AE playoffs just yet. With an automatic bid into the semifinals, BU can take some time off while the quarterfinal matches are played to scout out possible opponents.
“The positions of teams still haven’t been determined,” Feldman said. “The only thing I was concerned about was to establish home-field advantage. After Sunday, we will sort out what the quarterfinal matchups are and who we are most likely to see in the semifinal game. We get to rest from play, and I get to watch a little bit.”
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