After getting blown out of the water by the University of Maryland-Baltimore County 5–1 on Saturday, the Boston University men’s soccer team came back home to take on Harvard University. Despite the Terriers controlling of the game and tempo through most of the second half, they fell in double overtime by a score of 2–1.
Throughout many of BU’s (4–7–4, 1–1–2 America East) games this season, the team has had a slow start, and has been seemingly stagnant on offense. Tuesday night’s effort was no different. The team had limited chances and could not capitalize on the few it had.
In the 13th minute, sophomore midfielder Cameron Souri took a shot into the box but it was wide of freshman goalie Evan Mendez. Later, in the 18th minute, junior midfielder Anthony Ciccone drove the box but was blocked by the Harvard defense.
The Terriers’ chances were very limited after this, and it took until the 33rd minute of the half for the team to get close to goal, when Ciccone took a corner kick but the Harvard defense disposed of the BU attempt.Harvard’s chances in the first half were limited as well, only including three shots, one of them being saved by sophomore goalkeeper Nick Thomson in the 22nd minute. BU coach Neil Roberts said he noticed the first half performance and its lack of any offensive surge.
“I thought we controlled things,” Roberts said. “At the beginning of games both teams come out with a lot of energy. You want to move them around and see where the holes are.”
On a foul close to midfield in the 50th minute, freshman midfielder David Barna crossed the ball into the box where it was headed in for a goal by freshman forward Oliver White to put Harvard in the lead 1–0.
Although the Terriers fell behind early in the half, something seemed to click, as they began to pour on the offensive pressure. Soon after the Crimson goal, a solid header attempt was halted by a tremendous leaping save by Mendez.
The Terriers had a number of chances at the early stages of the half, especially by the forwards and midfielders but simply could not capitalize. By the 65th minute of the game, BU had 10 corner kicks, but was unable to convert on even a single one.
Finally in the 70th minute, on a give-and-go pass from junior midfielder Vicente Colmenares, Badji took a strike from about 35 meters out and landed a goal in the top left corner to give BU the equalizing goal.
“I thought Badji started to come along,” Roberts said. “Obviously that was a great goal. We hope to see those good glimpses he has more consistently.”
The goal did not stop the pressure and effort from BU. Three minutes after the Badji goal, the Terriers earned another corner and nearly scored on a shot taken Colmenares, but Mendez was up to the challenge and made the save.
Although BU had a great number of chances to win the game at the end of the half, regulation ended at 1–1 and the game headed to overtime, a situation with which the Terriers have become all too familiar.
The Terriers opened the first overtime with the aggression they displayed in the second half of the game. In the 93rd minute Parker Powell had a great chance to score but shot it wide over Mendez. In the 95th minute the Terriers earned back-to-back corner kicks but could not get any good chances on goal to seal the victory.
Harvard, for the most part of the first overtime, did not touch the ball in its offensive zone.
The game moved into a second overtime, despite the strong effort put forth by the BU attack.
Although the Terriers controlled the ball for the beginning part of the second overtime, they were yet again unable to get any good looks for a shot on goal.
However, in the 107th minute of the game, sophomore forward Zack Wolfenzon scored the game-winning goal for Harvard on a great crossing pass from freshman forward Connor McCarthy.
“We laid off a soft pass and they intercepted it. And it counted. They finished,” Roberts said. “I couldn’t have been happier with the way we played. We controlled the game and played as well as we could have played. We just didn’t finish.”
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.
