Terriers score 6 goals to defeat Lafayette

In a season in which the team has struggled to capitalize on scoring opportunities, the Boston University women’s soccer team put together one of its strongest offensive performances in program history Saturday afternoon at Nickerson Field, downing Lafayette College, 6-1.

With the victory, the Terriers (8-3-3, 3-0-2 Patriot League) extended their unbeaten streak to six games as they head into their final five regular season contests.

“It’s a big confidence boost for individual players and for the team collectively to know that we put a team — a good team and a competitive team — away and made most of our chances,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman.

Before the game and throughout most of the first half, rain fell onto the turf field, creating a particularly slick playing surface. With that, the Terriers concentrated most of their offensive efforts on playing through balls down the sidelines for their forwards to run onto.

The strategy paid off early when the Terriers earned the game’s first corner kick in the fourth minute. Senior forward Taylor Krebs’ service connected with the foot of senior defender Kai Miller, who volleyed the ball into the net to give the Terriers an early 1-0 advantage. The goal was Miller’s first of the season and only the second of her BU career.

Even after Miller’s strike, the game was still a back-and-forth affair. Senior goalkeeper Alyssa Parisi made her only save of the afternoon off Leopards (4-8, 1-4 Patriot League) midfielder Allie Torru’s long distance effort in the eighth minute. While BU continually earned possession in midfield, wet field conditions made it hard to properly weight passes and shots and create solid scoring chances.

“You really just have to focus more on your touch,” said BU sophomore forward Erica Kosienski. “As offense, you have to be aware that it could slip behind the defense and be ready for anything that could happen. Conditions play a big role.”

To insert some new life into the offense, Feldman sent Kosienski and junior midfielder Rachel Blauner into the game for Krebs and senior forward Ana Cuffia in the 25th minute.

Less than 90 seconds after entering the contest, Kosienski showcased the kind of scoring prowess that earned her 2013 Patriot League Rookie of the Year honors. As junior forward Jenna Fisher received the ball at the right side of the box, Kosienski ran away from Fisher and toward the mouth of the goal. Fisher dribbled and drew goalkeeper Danielle Sedillo out of position before passing it to a wide-open Kosienski for the easy finish.

Neither team would take a shot for the rest of the period, and the Terriers went into halftime riding a 2-0 lead. Even with the advantage on the scoreboard and a 5-1 disparity in shots, Feldman said she was not satisfied with her team’s first-half play.

“I said to the team at halftime, 2-0 is a really dangerous halftime lead, particularly because I thought we didn’t have as strong a handle on the game as you might think being up 2-0,” Feldman said. “I thought Lafayette was dominant in the first half, more than the score demonstrated.”

The Terriers took Feldman’s words to heart in the second half, playing an aggressive high-pressure defense that kept the ball in Lafayette’s defensive half.

Seven minutes into the half, Kosienski nearly struck again when she received the ball at the left side of the box and got a one-on-one opportunity with Sedillo. While Kosienski’s shot attempt hit off Sedillo and rolled out of bounds for a corner kick, the effort kick-started a tenacious BU attack that would produce four goals in nine minutes.

In the 56th minute, senior midfielder Jamie Turchi collected the ball near midfield, shook her defender and played a through ball for junior midfielder Clare Pleuler. Pleuler sprinted in between the Leopards’ defense, controlled the ball and dribbled to the top of the 18-yard box, where she took a shot that flew over the body of Sedillo and into the goal.

Just four minutes later, Kosienski scored her second goal of the afternoon and her fourth in the Terriers’ past three games. Kosienski got the ball at the top of the box with her back to the goal, spun her defender and launched a strike that bounced into the near post to extend BU’s lead to 4-0.

Kosienski’s career day was not done yet. In the 63rd minute, she dribbled the ball down the ride side of the box, drawing the attention of the Leopard defense and Sedillo. Kosienski then centered it to Blauner, who converted the chance for her first goal of the season.

“It feels good,” Kosienski said about her recent success. “I feel more like I’m contributing. It just feels great to be playing the way we are as a team.”

Almost immediately after sophomore goalkeeper Bridget Conway relieved Parisi in the 65th minute, Krebs scored her second goal of the season on the other end of the field. With a 6-0 lead in hand, Feldman was then able to insert a number of reserves in to finish out the contest, something that she said is vital to team development.

“They’ve worked really hard,” Feldman said. “The kids that don’t get a lot of minutes work as hard as the kids that get minutes. For them to be rewarded with a chunk of playing time, not five minutes, but a good, solid 20 or 25 minutes, is great because they’ve earned it.”

Despite the large deficit, the Leopards kept fighting. In the 86th minute, forward Kaelin King scooped a muffed clearance from freshman defender Erin Neville and shot it past Conway to make the score 6-1.

The six goals scored by the Terriers is the team’s highest scoring total for the team since an 8-0 win over the University of Maryland-Baltimore County on Oct. 16, 2011.

Feldman attributed the team’s second-half success to its improved pressure and communication.

“What we changed in the second half is they started to connect by using their voice, and therefore looking more coordinated defensively and therefore being able to apply more pressure, which allowed us to have a better handle of the game,” Feldman said. “That’s what we want to do all the time… The high pressure was more organized in the second half, and I thought that was significant in having the game tilt our way.”