In front of a crowd of 390 fans and alumni, the Boston University women’s soccer team defeated Yale University and continued a winning streak at Nickerson Field that has been going on for over a year.
“It’s the best 90 minutes we’ve played,” BU coach Nancy Feldman said about her team’s win over Yale. “We’ve played in spurts in other games.
“We certainly played well against Portland and we’ve had other parts of games that we’ve seen good things. But this was the best 90 minutes of team play.”
In the Terriers 12th-straight home victory, BU scored three goals, with two coming from senior midfielder Brittany Heist and the other from the foot sophomore forward Madison Clemens.
Heist’s first goal came in the 10th minute of play and gave the Terriers a lead until Yale senior Enma Mullo tied it up in the 21st minute.
“[It’s] just the field itself – the space and stuff with practices – and the fan support,” Heist said of the team’s comfort at Nickerson. “I think both of those help, especially with our team on the sideline here. Just the home atmosphere – it’s great.”
Before the Terriers stepped back onto the field, the team and some of the former players celebrated the work of Terrier Deidre Enos Lovett who played at BU from 1997-00.
Lovett was the first BU women’s soccer player to be named an All-American as well as the first to be drafted by a professional team.
During halftime, Lovett also became the first women’s soccer player to have her number retired at BU.
“[Deirdre] is a special player, was a special player and is a special person,” Feldman said.
“[Deirdre] was a program changer. She came in here in 1997 and we were a two-year old program and she was one of the gals, one of the team because of how she is – she’s humble, she deflects praise, deflects all her success. In reality she was the reason we won our first America East championship.”
After watching the celebration of a former Terrier great, BU opened up the second half of the game with Heist’s second goal, a header off a corner kick from sophomore midfielder Kylie Strom and a shot from Clemens in the last minute of play that rolled into the net past Yale goalkeeper Elise Wilcox to give the Terriers a 3-1 win.
“We love playing here and the kids are really proud of keeping this place hard for opponents to come in and win games,” Feldman said. “It’s a goal of ours to take care of home field and win games at home.
“We want to win all the games, but I think there’s an added sense of this is our house,” she said.
The last time the Terriers were handed a loss on their own turf was Sept. 4, 2010 in a challenging game against Boston College. BU and the Eagles held each other scoreless for the first 63 minutes of play before BC was able to take the lead on a goal off of a corner kick.
This loss served as one of the few before BU went on a streak of 13-straight wins last season.
While another home win was important to Feldman, the key of the game was the team’s improvement in consistency and in unity.
“I’m not big on the numbers things,” Feldman said. “I just know we want to, this year, continue to build on team connection and team performance and being a unit and being consistent and it was really about that today.”
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