Even as senior attack Erica Baumgartner reached a career benchmark, the Boston University lacrosse team fell to University of Denver 13-11 last Saturday in Denver.
The loss is the second in a row for the Terriers (3-4), dropping their overall record below the .500 plateau for the third time in the young season.
Despite the loss, senior attack Erica Baumgartner eclipsed a career milestone when she recorded her 100th assist in her BU career when she helped on a goal from junior attack Hannah Frey to draw the Terriers within two goals of the Pioneers (2-6) at 11-9 with 12:57 remaining in the game.
“I’m very proud of Erica. She’s come such a long way having sat out last year,” said BU coach Liz Robertshaw. “The fact that she got her 100th assist just speaks to the kind of player that she is.”
The banner day for Baumgartner, which included four assists and one goal for five points, however, was ultimately not enough for BU to prevail on the road.
The Terriers got off to a quick start, getting early goals from Frey and senior midfielder Rachel Collins to take a 2-0 lead with 22:26 remaining in the first half.
But the Pioneers responded furiously and repeatedly, scoring four unanswered goals over the next 20 minutes to take a 4-2 lead just 2:38 before halftime. The four Denver goals came from four different players – attack Kara Secora, midfielder Gretchen Nace, midfielder Alex Befus and midfielder Mikayla Clark.
Additionally, three of those four goals came from free position shots. For the game, the Terriers gave up 13 free position shots, with the Pioneers converting on seven of those chances.
“Defensively, for that small period of time, we got a little disorganized,” Robertshaw said. “We put them on the free position line 13 times and when you do that, they’re going to score. They scored seven and that really hurt us.”
After surrendering those four goals to Denver, BU came back with two goals within an eight-second span from Baumgartner and sophomore midfielder Kristen Mogavero to even the score at four apiece heading into halftime.
Junior attack Molly Swain added a goal for BU in the first 30 seconds of the second half to give the Terriers a temporary 5-4 lead that would last for six seconds as Denver responded with an unassisted goal from defender Melissa Maier to even the score.
But it was when the Terriers held a slim 6-5 lead in a hotly contested game with about 27 minutes remaining that the proverbial floodgates opened and Denver took control of the game.
Over the next seven minutes, Denver went on another extended run, tallying five unanswered goals – two from Befus, two from attack Jenn Etzel and final one from Clark – to take a commanding 10-6 lead with 20:02 left in the game.
The Terriers stormed back over the next 14 minutes by going on a 5-1 run sparked by three assists from Baumgartner and two goals from Frey that evened the score at 11-11 with just under seven minutes remaining.
However, Befus broke the late tie with a goal off a free position shot with 4:18 left to give the Pioneers a 12-11 lead that was doubled with an unassisted goal from Secora with just over two minutes left to provide Denver with enough of a cushion to preserve the win.
With the Terriers now mired in a losing streak, Robertshaw noted that her team must step up its offensive productivity and capitalize on opportunities if it hopes to contend and excel this season.
“We weren’t going to goal as hard as I thought we could have and we made some poor shooting decisions,” Robertshaw said. “The open looks were there, but we just weren’t putting the ball in the back of the net and finishing on those opportunities.”
Furthermore, Robertshaw said she feels that her team’s problems extend beyond mere productivity – that is, the Terriers need to prepare themselves mentally and motivate themselves in order to win games.
“We need a little more competitive fire and fight from the girls, which we addressed today with the team and we’re going to continue to address it for the rest of the year as long as it takes,” Robertshaw said.
The Terriers will look to turn things around and end their current losing streak with a game at Yale University on Wednesday at 4 p.m. in New Haven, Conn.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
