Nancy Feldman can usually find something wrong with her team.
However, after the Boston University women’s soccer team won 8-0 Sunday afternoon against the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (0-13-2, 0-5-1 America East), not even its biggest critic could find a problem with how the Terriers (14-2-1, 7-0-0 America East) performed.
“I couldn’t find a whole lot wrong with [the game] and I’m pretty critical,” Feldman said after the game. “I thought we played a pretty complete game, from start to finish. I thought we were sharp, we were sharing the ball, and we had a good speed of play.”
BU had not scored eight goals in a game since Sept. 16th, 1998, when the Terriers won 8-3 at Providence College. In fact, only once in the 16-year history of the BU women’s soccer program have the Terriers scored more goals or won by a larger margin: Sept. 30th, 1995, when BU beat Howard University at home 11-0.
Sunday’s win over UMBC is the largest victory for BU in America East Conference contests.
Sophomore forward Madison Clemens opened the scoring for the Terriers, after a quick back and forth in the UMBC box with senior forward Tiya Gallegos.
Sophomore midfielder Kylie Strom and senior midfielder Jessica Luscinski remained tied as BU’s leading goal scorers after they notched the next two goals.
Sophomore midfielder Megan McGoldrick scored twice for BU, contributing both the fourth goal of the game in the 41st minute and the seventh goal in the 71st minute.
After sitting out last year with a knee injury, the goals were the first time McGoldrick scored for the Terriers in over a year. She said scoring again was “very calming.”
“It’s nice coming back [from] being injured for a year and trying to play through a bunch of injuries this season, it’s just nice to put it in the back of the net,” McGoldrick said.
Gallegos also scored once for BU, her fifth goal in six games. Emma Clark chipped the ball into the air to the senior tri-captain at the beginning of the second half, who headed it into the goal.
“Clark came off the line and lobbed one up and I just jumped for it,” Gallegos said. “I was hoping it would go in, and it did.”
Gallegos was in position to score again, about to receive a pass just a yard from the UMBC goal and with no one in her way, when a UMBC defender came in and broke up the scoring opportunity.
Unfortunately for the Retriever, in the process of intercepting the pass, she knocked the ball into the goal, giving the Terriers their sixth mark on the scoreboard.
With 27 minutes remaining, Feldman made a major substitution, switching out almost all of her starters and upperclassmen in favor of underclassmen, with hopes of giving the next potential batch of Terrier starters some valuable playing time.
“The reserves came in; the subs came in and played great,” Feldman said of her younger group. “[At] the end we lost the ball a little bit; we have to keep possession, but other than that, their effort was real good.”
The unit of underclassmen found their way past Retriever goaltender Mo Van Vlerah once, for the eighth and final goal of the game. Alejandra Diaz scored following a corner kick from Ana Cuffia.
“She hits a great ball,” said Feldman of Cuffia’s corners.
The Terriers took 31 shots on Sunday, to UMBC’s four. The Retrievers starting goalkeeper, Lauren Kadet, made eight saves before being replaced at the start of the second half with Van Vlerah.
Sunday was also Breast Cancer Recognition Day for BU. The team rose close to $1,500 dollars for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, primarily by selling both pink soccer balls at the George Sherman Union all week and the special pink jerseys they wore for the game, according to Feldman
“I thought it was a great game for a great cause,” Feldman said. “We’ve all been touched by cancer.”
With the win, the Terriers have now won their past nine games, and their last 21 conference games (including the playoffs). They next host Dartmouth College (3-9-0) on Wednesday, before playing both their regular- and America East- season-ending game on Sunday against the University of Hartford.
Feldman called the Dartmouth contest, “a really important game and a really competitive one for us to keep our non-conference record and now our ranking.”
When asked if she thought breaking up the conference schedule was beneficial to the team, Feldman indicated she thought it helps the Terriers postseason plans.
“If you look at the schedule,” she said, “we’ve done it every year for the past few years and we always try to put a real good team in there to continue our readiness for postseason.”
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