Following an exciting win on Saturday against Bucknell University, the Boston University women’s lacrosse team will face Lehigh University in the first round of the Patriot League Tournament on Tuesday.
This is the second-straight year that the Terriers (7-8, 5-3 Patriot League) have made it to the Tournament. In 2014, they finished the regular season with five wins and three losses within the Patriot League and entered the tournament seeded last out of the six participating teams, but made it to the finals before falling to Loyola University Maryland.
This year, the Terriers are seeded fourth and will face the No. 5 seed Lehigh (9-7, 4-4 Patriot League).
BU coach Liz Robertshaw said while her team is excited for this year’s tournament, she is concerned about the team feeling well rested because of the quick turnaround from Saturday’s game.
Robertshaw also emphasized that the Terriers must match the energy Lehigh brings to the game to compete with the Mountain Hawks.
On April 5, BU ended Lehigh’s four-game win streak with an 8-5 win, in which the Terriers built what would prove to be an insurmountable four-goal halftime lead.
In regular season play in the 2014 season, the Terriers battled Lehigh into two overtimes before the Mountain Hawks scored to win 12-11. However, the Terriers would get their revenge in the first round of the Patriot League tournament with a 14-9 win.
Robertshaw said that although Lehigh is seeded below the Terriers, the Mountain Hawks are a formidable opponent.
“We’re playing a team that plays well,” Robertshaw said. “They’re well disciplined, well coached. They have three scorers who have been doing their job well.”
Those top three offensive players for the Mountain Hawks are sophomore Allison LaBeau, senior Carli Sukonik and junior Kendall Garden.
LaBeau, who leads the team in points with 48 and has 34 goals, Sukonik, who leads the team with 38 tallies, and Garden, who has 24 goals, have all proven to be consistent offensive threats.
“We need to limit their scoring threats,” Robertshaw said of her game plan. “We need to maximize our possession time.”
Over the course of the season, more Terriers have stepped up and scored. The season began with redshirt junior attack Mallory Collins and junior midfielder Ally Adams scoring most of the goals with one or two a game contributed by another team member. Both Collins and Adams have continued to find the back of the net nearly every game, but others have started to add to their success.
Junior defender Remy Nolan has 14 goals on the season. Both junior midfielder Jill Horka and senior attack Kelsey Marafioti have netted 10 goals in 2015.
The last time these two teams faced off, the Terriers held the Mountain Hawks, a team that averages 9.63 goals a game, to only five goals. The Terriers didn’t allow LaBeau to score and limited Garden to two. Sukonik, who averages 2.13 goals a game only found the back of the net once.
“Defensively, we’ve been playing good one-versus-one and team defense,” Robertshaw said. “Whether it’s been a win or a loss, we’ve been making good plays. We need to keep that going. And Jill Horka’s been great on the draw.”
Although the Terriers struggled with inconsistency all season, Robertshaw said the team is ready for the tournament.
“They’re feeling good,” Robertshaw said. “They want to make this a long week.”
