The air was thick and heavy as Boston University head coach Sally Starr threw her hands in the air, expressing her frustration at another unclear call.
The hot air and bright sun beat down on the BU field hockey team as they secured their first conference win in a 1-0 defeat over the University of Vermont Catamounts at Jordan Field Saturday afternoon.
“It was a hard game to get a rhythm into just because the officiating didn’t allow you to set a rhythm,” Starr said.
Yet the Terriers (6-5, 1-0 America East) managed to find a rhythm, which took the efforts of the entire squad. Junior forward/midfielder Nicole van Oosterom won the game with her second goal of the season off of a penalty corner, with the feed coming from sophomore midfielder/fullback Kat Spring.
“We did a good job of getting corners,” Starr said. “We’re getting shots off, we’re just not scoring on them. It’s a national trend. A lot of teams are getting corners and not scoring a lot.”
The defense played a tough game, with many Terriers contributing to keep Vermont (6-5, 0-1 AE) off the board. Senior captain and fullback Kate Murphy slid her way to making aggressive tackles and aided in a team save while freshman goalkeeper Valentina Cerda was temporarily out of the goal.
“I think the defense definitely held tight, especially when we were trying to work through the kinks in the first half,” Murphy said. “We really stayed disciplined. We’ve been working on tackles all week, and really staying low and ready, staying on our marks and really got into our groove in the second half and started attacking.”
Also instrumental to the Terriers’ defensive success was sophomore forward/midfielder Dana Centofanti, who made a defensive save in the game and was a contributor to key offensive plays that kept the Terriers consistently in Vermont’s territory in the second half.
Midfielder Giovanna Monaco served as a force to be reckoned with for the Catamounts, making several timely tackles for the Terriers, and making two shots, one on goal, through 67 minutes of play.
Vermont goalkeeper Stephanie Zygmunt posted a stellar performance, making 14 saves against the Terriers, confirming that Vermont is not the same team it was last year.
“This game is definitely indicative of how strong our conference has become,” Starr said. “Every game is going to be like this. Every game is going to be hard fought and right down to the wire.”
The game was exactly that, with Vermont holding on until the closing minutes of the game, earning two penalty corners in the last five minutes. Luckily, a strong Terriers defense was able to stem Vermont’s offensive flow, a feat Murphy attributes to confidence.
“It’s really [thinking] that ‘this ball isn’t going in, there’s no way it’s going in,’ and just knowing that and having that confidence on the line,” Murphy said.
Nine different Terriers contributed to the team shot total of 23–17 in the second half – and 13 corners. The Catamounts had five shots and two corners.
“It was an exciting game for fans for sure,” Starr said.
On Sunday afternoon, fans had the chance to see an even more exciting game as the Terriers lost to the No. 9 Duke Blue Devils 1-0 in overtime. The skies threatened rain for the second time, but it held off for the game’s finish.
The Blue Devils (7-4) were fresh off a 4-2 victory against No. 8 Boston College, a game that Starr and the Terriers watched Friday night.
“We watched them Friday night here against a really good BC team and they shredded them, so I was really worried coming into this game,” Starr said. “We needed to tackle well, we needed to defend well, we needed to step up and intercept, we needed to play good team defense, as well as individual defense, and we did that today.”
Led by junior fullback Jacinda McLeod, the BU defense held the Blue Devils to 14 shots, with just three coming in the second half. She was joined by junior fullback/midfielder Kiley Allosso and Monaco, who made several key tackles to keep the ball from finding its way into the BU goal. Murphy made a diving save in the second half while Cerda was outside of the goal, keeping the score tied until the end of regulation.
Amidst the strong BU defense, Duke took advantage of the reduced number of players during overtime and midfielder Tara Jennings turned the opportunity into a goal, dribbling the ball into the cage from eight yards. Midfielder Devon Gagliardi assisted the goal.
“I’m not an advocate for the way we do overtime in this country, but you’ve got to play it,” Starr said. “They had a breakaway opportunity and they finished on it.”
The Terriers had one shot from van Oosterom to compete with Duke’s 14 and were unable to earn a single corner while Duke attained eight. Cerda recored eight saves and allowed one goal.
Though the Terriers did not secure the win against Duke, Starr is happy with her team’s performance.
“We were able to compete with a top ten team, which we were unable to do when we played Syracuse and Michigan,” Starr said. “We played smart and hard. We really grew up today.”
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.
