Led by Shaun Taylor’s hat trick, the Boston University men’s soccer team defeated defending Patriot League champion Colgate University, 4-2, Saturday night in exciting fashion, bouncing back from an early deficit to scratch one in the win column.
The 248 fans who gathered at Nickerson Field had little to cheer about early on, as Colgate freshman Matt Schuber scored on his own rebound six minutes into the game, burying a ball initially deflected by Terrier goalkeeper Hrafn Davidsson.
‘We changed the defense up before the game because we wanted to get more offense,’ BU coach Neil Roberts said. ‘We knew it was going to be a little bit confusing out there in the first 15 to 20 minutes and we paid the price for it, but we thought we needed to make the changes to get more offense in the game.’
That plan worked well as the game continued but not without some bumps in the road. Fifteen minutes after Schuber’s goal, Raiders’ offense (3-2-2) took advantage of a subpar defensive effort with a soaring shot to the top left corner of the goal. Davidsson barely got his hand on the ball, stuffing it into the crossbar to make the save.
‘ ‘That was a turning point in the game,’ Davidsson said. ‘A reality check for us because we didn’t do well in the first minutes of the first half, but we started communicating better after [the near goal].’
Despite a relentless Raider attack, the Terriers’ (2-3-2) didn’t back down, and with 21 minutes left in the first half Taylor put the Terriers on the scoreboard. The header off a set piece was the first of three goals Taylor would score on the night. It was also the first goal the Terriers have scored off a set piece this year.
‘One of the goals of the game was to get a set piece on target,’ Roberts said. ‘We needed to get a set piece on target, and it was even better that we scored on that play.”
Seven minutes later, senior Dan Schultz was taken down in the goal box, setting up Taylor to take the penalty kick. With a perfect shot to the bottom, lefthand corner of the goal, Taylor netted his second strike of the game and the Terriers had a 2-1 lead.
Near the end of the half, Colgate made a lazy Terrier defense pay for its sluggishness, as Schuber knocked in his second goal of the night with two seconds left in the first half to tie the game at two.
‘I was very disappointed that we gave up that second goal,’ Roberts said. ‘The first goal wasn’t a big deal, but the second goal was a problem. We were up 2-1; we had the game in control. There were a number of mistakes that were made at the end that shouldn’t have been made. There was no need for it.’
The Terriers came out strong in the second half. The defense allowed Colgate only three shots in the final 45 minutes, while the offense took a total of seven shots and scored twice more.
In the 53rd minute, senior Jon Jonsson gained the ball and took a shot from the right side to the far goal post, giving the Terriers the lead once again.
The highlight of the night came in the 75th minute, when sophomore Aaron O’Neal led Taylor with a pass through the heart of the Raiders’ defense, setting up the junior one-on-one with Colgate keeper David Cappuccio. Taylor beat the goalie with ease, giving him his first-ever hat trick and the Terriers a two-goal cushion.
BU made sure the two-goal lead didn’t slip through its fingers, playing hard until the final whistle. The Colgate offense was stifled for the rest of the game, while the Terrier offense continued to pressure the Raider backs.
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.
