The Boston University women’s lacrosse team is set to hit the road to face Siena College in its 2015 season opener.
The Terriers will look to start the season with a win after advancing to the Patriot League Championship game in 2014. Historically, the program is 15-11-1 in season openers and is 4-2-0 on the road.
BU coach Liz Robertshaw said she is excited to see her team finally get out on the field in the regular season after completing a competing in a promising scrimmage match against Brown University last Saturday.
“We had a nice scrimmage against Brown last weekend, I saw some nice execution and risking taking by my attackers and nice defensive play by my defenders,” she said. “I want to see that tomorrow. The preseason is long, it’s four weeks … we’re battling each other. I know we’re excited to play against somebody else and I’m excited to see how we look.”
The Terriers also return several players from the 2014 team, including junior midfielder Jill Horka, who led BU in goals with 29 and was second on the team in points with 35 to close out last year.
Robertshaw said she is confident that the ball will be evenly distributed and her team will compete every game.
“We have a veteran midfield and attack core,” she said. “They give us a lot of players to watch. You’re going to see a lot of great things from Jill Horka, [junior midfielder] Ally Adams, and [junior defenseman] Remy Nolan. They round out that trio of junior midfielders. They’re really dynamic and all bring different things to the table. It’s been fun to see some newer players get into the mix. We have a couple freshmen, all of whom had a great fall and preseason, players like [freshman midfielder] Sarah Anderson, [freshman attacks] Mickenzie Larivee and Avery Donahoe.
“They played well against Brown and if they continue moving forward, they’ll have a great game against Siena tomorrow.”
The Terriers will be looking to balance both sides of the ball. They have a veteran attack but will have to adjust to a relatively new defense as they start the season. The Terriers will have eight freshmen to work into the lineup along with two All-Patriot League players from last year in Horka (First Team) and senior attack Lindsay Weiner (Second Team).
Robertshaw is said she will look to have players feed off each other both on the offensive and defensive side.
“I think our team is pretty interesting, our offense is really veteran,” she said. “On the flip side, our defense is really new. We only return one starting defender. It’s going to be a challenge for us, we have a lot of players who have played and we need to get them feeling confident and playing well together, we’ve seen signs but we need to get it consistent.”
This will be the Terriers’ first-ever matchup against the Saints. Both teams will be playing their season openers. Siena is looking to have a turnaround season as they finished 5-12 last season, but were slightly better in conference play with a 3-5 record in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
Robertshaw said she expects Friday’s game to be a tough challenge for her team.
“They have a lot of veteran attackers, who will come at us,” she said. “I think they will be aggressive. We both just want to play somebody else. I know they’re going to come after us.”
Doug covers women's soccer and other sports for the Daily Free Press. When he's not doing schoolwork, writing, or being a social butterfly on campus, he enjoys playing the piano, or hitting the course for a round of golf.
