The Boston University women’s soccer team bounced back from a couple of losses to get itself back on track on Friday night.
In front of more than 700 fans, the Terriers blanked Monmouth University 2–0 at the sixth annual Terrier Tailgate.
After beginning the season with a pair of shutout wins, BU (3–2–1) dropped a pair to Dayton University and No. 10 Boston College. The well-received victory at Nickerson Field returned a significant amount of confidence to the club and its coach.
“It was a bit of an early season defining moment for us,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “We were either going to respond in a way that was a fight response, or we were going to respond in a way that was a weaker response. I thought we responded with a fight response, and that’s what we needed to do.”
The Terriers responded by quickly taking a lead over the Hawks during the first half. Just before the seventh minute of play, junior midfielder Megan McGoldrick pushed a slow-rolling cross into the box of the opposition. As the ball just barely snuck by Monmouth (1–4) goalkeeper Ashley Lewis and one other Hawk defender, sophomore forward Ana Cuffia launched it into the net from just yards out.
After drawing blood early, BU’s offensive approach lessened slightly, and focus seemed to be on preventing the Hawks from producing any opportunities of their own. The Terriers took only 10 shots over the course of the game, seven fewer than their average of 17 coming into the Tailgate. However, Monmouth was held to a mere four shots (two on goal) of their own.
Most significant of the backline for the Terriers were junior Erin Mullen and freshman McKenzie Hollenbaugh. Both players stymied multiple breakaway attempts and did well to prevent any dangerous through-balls from becoming too threatening. Feldman even credited the young Hollenbaugh as showing similitude with a recently graduated defensive standout.
“[Hollenbaugh]’s actually very similar to Catherine Donnelly,” Feldman said. “She’s got the speed, she’s got the tenacity, she’s an incredible one-v-one defender and she’s got a real high level of confidence. For a first-year player to have that high level of confidence and believe in herself is pretty rare.”
Eventually, the Terriers found an opportunity to pad their single-point lead. A ricochet forced the ball up high and inside the 18-yard box on Monmouth’s end where Lewis attempted to make a play. A split-second bobble allowed senior forward Brea Hewitt to get her head on the ball, but not before she was tripped up by Lewis and brought to the ground. A whistle was blown, and BU was rewarded a penalty kick. Junior midfielder Emma Clark calmly stepped up and struck a waist-high shot right by Lewis’s left side with just more than nine minutes left of regulation play.
Feldman said that she was impressed by her team’s ability to bounce back from tough losses, but she understands that they must change their focus to the future. With defending NCAA champion Stanford University coming up in the next week, the Terriers will certainly have to buckle down.
“The reality is that we’re kind of a young team,” Feldman said. “We have to learn how to bounce back, we have to learn how to let things go when we aren’t successful, and we have to learn how to let things go when we are successful.”
BU moved past its win over Monmouth and traveled to Harvard University on Monday, where the Terriers tied the Crimson 2–2.
Harvard got on the scoreboard early when defender Taryn Kurcz headed a cross from midfielder Aisha Price past junior goaltender Andrea Green in the fifth minute.
The lead lasted until the 38th minute, when freshman forward Jenna Fisher scored off a pass from junior midfielder Kylie Strom and tied the game 1–1 entering halftime. The freshmen were not done scoring though, as freshman midfielder Clare Pleuler netted her first collegiate goal off a pass from sophomore forward Taylor Krebs in the 64th minute to give BU the 2–1 lead.
The lead did not last long though, as Kurcz struck again with another header goal in the 68th minute to tie the game up. The teams remained tied through two overtime periods while the only shot on goal during either frame came from Harvard.
Next on the schedule for the Terriers is the Stanford Nike Invitational tournament, where it will face Stanford and No. 24 Santa Clara in Stanford, Calif.
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.
