On Sunday afternoon, the Boston University men’s soccer team will continue its three-game homestand against conference rival Bucknell University.
The Terriers (4-2) are fresh off a victory against Harvard University and will look to stay strong as they begin the in-conference portion of the schedule. Lossless against Patriot League opponents in the regular season last year, the Terriers entered the 2015 season ranked second in the league.
Bucknell (3-3-1), their opponents, were ranked third in that same preseason poll, indicating that Sunday’s matchup should be a competitive one.
The Bison are coming off two well-played games — the first a 4-0 rout of Seton Hall University, the other a tightly contested loss to Xavier University. Against Seton Hall (0-5-1), the Bison were outshot 20-12, but their goalkeeper Mike Lansing earned the shutout by making a few difficult saves.
He followed that Seton Hall effort with three saves against Xavier (6-2), but it was not enough, as the Bison fell to the Musketeers by a score of 1-0.
On the season, Lansing has blocked 21 shots for a save percentage of .840. While he has started the Bison’s last two games, his teammate Clarke Fox has been solid as well in three starts. Regardless of who they encounter in goal on Sunday, it will be tough for the Terriers to find twine.
While the Bison’s defensive unit has been a force all season, and particularly of late, the Terriers’ offense has been one of the league’s best.
The bulk of the offensive production has been from junior forward Felix De Bona and sophomore midfielder Anthony Viteri. De Bona scored in three consecutive games early in the season, but has been held without a goal since the Terriers’ game against Siena College on Sept. 8.
Viteri was the only scorer for BU in a 2-1 victory against the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Sept. 13, and notched an additional two scores in Thursday’s win against the Crimson (1-4-2). During his last season at St. John’s University, Viteri recorded only one goal in 999 minutes. So far this year he has five.
“I feel like [BU] coach [Neil Roberts] has a lot of confidence in me, so I just take it,” Viteri said. “… This is my style of play, the coaches trust in me and they back me up the way I can play it.”
However, Bucknell’s own offensive prowess looms ahead of Sunday’s clash. Senior Jesse Klug and junior Sebastiaan Blickman lead the Bison with four goals and three goals, respectively.
Since each player poses matchup problems, the game is still promising to be an enticing one.
“[The team] knows Bucknell is coming, and Bucknell’s a good team, we’ve never beaten them,” Roberts said. “We’ve got a tough one on Sunday. They’ve been resting all week and we had a tough game today, so we got to get ready for Sunday.”
