On a clear night over Nickerson Field, the Boston University women’s soccer team took the field against a physical University of Massachusetts team. Coming into Friday night’s game, the Terriers had not put the ball in the net in two games.
This offensive struggle continued into Friday due in large part to the play of UMass goalkeeper Emily Cota, whose seven saves anchored the stifling defense and held off the Terriers in a 1–0 decision.
The Terriers fell to 3–5–1 on the season as the Minutewomen moved to 3–4–0.
“I don’t look at it like ‘three games we haven’t scored,’” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “I look at it as tonight, we should have scored.”
The Terriers were not short of chances, as they were awarded 10 corner kicks in the game.
Early in the first half, sophomore forward Ana Cuffia used a bit of trickery and quickly crossed the ball into the box off of a corner, but it was punched away by Cota.
The Terriers began the game with a steady pace, controlling possession as they did for the better part of the game, but were unable to generate a goal.
Their methodical approach to the game backfired early when the Minutewomen launched a counter-attack on the Terriers and beat junior goalkeeper Andrea Green for a score.
The Terriers did however show many signs of life throughout the match. As time wound down in the 79th minute, freshman midfielder Rachel Blauner dribbled into the box and fired a shot high towards the net, but Cota’s outstretched arms punched the ball high.
As the game entered the final minutes, a sense of urgency to score became apparent as the Terriers transitioned into a four-player front to generate somewhat of a push toward the goal.
“The energy dropped, and we needed to do something to kick it back up.” Feldman said.“The last 25 minutes is not the part of the game that I want to remember because we were playing a 4–2–4 and a 3–3–4. It’s not our shape, we were just trying to generate something.”
In its last three games, the Terriers have been shut out three times while averaging nine shots per game. While the BU offense has averaged nine shots per game, opposing goalkeepers have only had to make three saves per game, proving the Terriers have struggled to earn shots on goal.
Despite coming off the bench in the UMass game, Blauner led the Terriers’ offense with two shots on goal. However, junior forward Madison Clemens led the Terriers with three shots in the game, only one of which went on goal.
“I don’t really know what the reason is, it could be a combination of lack of confidence, youth, right attitude or just getting more comfortable in our patterns and how we’re going to create goals.”
Looking ahead to the Terriers next match, the team will head down to Raleigh, North Carolina to face the North Carolina State University on Thursday with the hopes of jumpstarting this stagnant offense before heading into America East conference play.
The matchup with the Wolfpack should be a good opportunity for the Terriers to generate some offense, as NC State has allowed a total of 11 goals in its past three games.
This season, the Wolfpack has allowed 1.70 goals-against per game to its opponents.
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Great article. Very impressive.