The Boston University women’s lacrosse team ended its two-game losing streak Wednesday evening, defeating Dartmouth College 13-7 at New Balance Field.
The Terriers (2-2) evened off their win-loss total to get back at .500 for the season. The win also ended BU’s three-game losing streak to Dartmouth (0-3), which dated back to the 2012 season.
BU put together a solid effort after it struggled against the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Feb. 25 and Vanderbilt University on Feb. 20.
BU coach Liz Robertshaw said she was pleased by her team’s effort and execution in Wednesday’s game.
“I’m pleased with the game,” she said. “We’ve had a tough week and a half battling against and coming back from rough losses against Vanderbilt and UMass. We’ve tried to re-evaluate and put together a game plan.”
Despite Dartmouth’s winless record, Robertshaw said beating the Big Green carries great significance.
“Any time you beat a tough team like Dartmouth, it’s huge for our program,” she said. “I’m definitely going to sleep better than I did last week.”
Against UMass (5-0), BU suffered from a lack of offense, as it only mustered two goals. However, Wednesday’s game was a different story. Two players in particular answered the call offensively for the Terriers in redshirt junior attack Mallory Collins and junior defenseman Remy Nolan. The former scored a game-high five goals while the latter scored her first four goals of the season Wednesday afternoon.
Collins struggled against UMass, as the leading goal scorer for BU didn’t record a goal against the Minutemen. Robertshaw said Collins felt bitter about last week’s UMass contest and used it as motivation in Wednesday’s game.
“We knew everyone had to be a threat,” she said. “Mallory really had a chip on her shoulder after last week against UMass. She took it personally, we did a lot of video, [spent] a lot of time on the field and she stepped up.”
As for Nolan, Robertshaw said she wanted to be a bigger part of the team’s offense and has spent more hours working on her game.
“Remy wanted to be a factor,” she said. “She spent a lot of time on the field working with [assistant coach Kim] Hillier at practice yesterday and translated that to the game today.”
One of the key factors to Wednesday’s win was the defense that BU played and its efforts to limit Dartmouth’s two best players, junior Jaclyn Leto and senior Sarah Byrne. Robertshaw said she made it known to her team that it was imperative to stop those two players. Byrne was held scoreless, and Leto had three goals, which gives her 14 tallies in three games.
Robertshaw said she was happy with her team’s defensive efforts Wednesday.
“Overall, I was very pleased with our defense,” she said. “I think we shut down some very tough players in Sarah Byrne and Jaclyn Leto. We did a good job of playing team defense. I think we tried to limit our fouls and that we were extremely confident in transition, and as a result, our attack was able to be the most aggressive it’s been this season.”
Robertshaw said her team has to keep working hard as it enters a crucial part of its season.
“It started with practice yesterday, and I told them practice has to be the same tomorrow,” she said. “We have to prepare each other for now getting into conference play, so I think we’re going to continue asking people to step up. It has to be different people every night.”
