One game remains on the Boston University lacrosse team’s regular season and conference schedule, and it will be played this weekend when the Terriers face Binghamton University on Saturday afternoon in upstate New York.
The Terriers and Bearcats have been on opposite ends of the winning spectrum over the past month, with the former hitting its stride and the latter struggling to win a game.
Since March 14, Boston has won nine of 10 games, including a perfect 5-0 run through the America East – the Terriers were 1-4 before the period. In the same timeframe, Binghamton lost 10 of its 11 games, including a 0-5 record against conference opponents, after previously having a 2-2 record.
Despite the different records, BU coach Liz Robertshaw said she does not expect the Terriers to rest on Saturday, though she does expect Binghamton to be searching for a win.
“I definitely expect Binghamton to want to come out and play their best game and for the win,” Robertshaw said. “I think any team wants to go and expect that coming from their eyes. From our side of things, I think we’ve really tried to focus on ourselves and what our goals are. One of them was to go through the conference and win every game.”
Robertshaw also said she did not expect to try anything exceptionally different ahead of next weekend’s America East Tournament at Nickerson Field, though she did say at this point in the season the Terriers are in a position to be more innovative within the context of their offense.
“At this point in the game, I think we’re sticking to our basic framework, but I think the girls are doing a nice job of being creative off of it,” she said. “So I don’t think we’re going to try to change a lot of things up, I think we’re just going to do what we do and do it better.”
The road trip is the Terriers first since they went to the University at Albany on April 7 for a 16-11 comeback win. Their three games after that all took place at Nickerson Field, beginning with the one loss, an 18-9 defeat at the hands of Boston College. It was followed by a 15-14 win two Saturdays ago against Stony Brook University to lock up the top seed in the conference and an 11-6 win over Canisius College last Sunday on Senior Day.
Binghamton enters after a 17-8 home loss to Cornell University on Tuesday. The Bearcats most recent conference game was last Saturday, a 12-7 loss at the University of Vermont.
While the Bearcats suffered a loss to Cornell, Robertshaw did offer some praise of Binghamton’s play based on the game film she has watched.
“They scored eight goals on Cornell and they were all good goals,” she said.
Senior attack Lis Zuren leads Binghamton with 33 goals, with an additional 13 assists. The assists leader at 30 is junior attack Kimberly McGeever, who also sits at fourth on the goal scoring list at 21.
“They have some good attacking sets,” Robertshaw said of the Binghamton offense. “This team likes to push the fast break, they want to take it to cage and they’re willing to take risks and that’s something we’ve seen in film the last three or four games they’ve played and we need to do a good job of stepping up and slowing them down.”
In goal, the Bearcats have turned to freshman goalkeeper Kara Pafumi, with 910:51 played across 15 games. She has allowed 205 goals and made 124 saves for a 3-12 record. Against Cornell, she allowed all 17 goals but also made nine saves in her 60 minutes of play.
Ultimately, Robertshaw said it is important for her team to win, even if they have everything locked up heading into the playoffs.
“We’re not going to get caught up with how many wins, how many losses everyone has,” she said. “I think it’s an opportunity for us to go out, play a good game, and get a win. I think that’s something we’re really focused on.”
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