After suffering an 11-8 setback at the hands of the University of Massachusetts Amherst last Wednesday, the Boston University women’s lacrosse team will travel to Dartmouth College Tuesday, looking for its second win of the season.
Still fresh off winning her 100th game at the helm of the Terriers (1-2), BU head coach Liz Robertshaw said her team needs to avoid suffering lapses in aggressiveness and not let opponents control BU’s tempo.
“We need to be a little more aggressive and fearless with our play,” Robertshaw said. “Against a tough team like UMass, we allowed them to dictate the pace. I also think we allowed them to take us out of our element by reacting to how we played, so I think a big focus for this team is making sure we play at our speed.”
One week after having to key on UMass (4-0) stars Erika Eipp and Callie Santos, the Terriers will have their hands full with Dartmouth (2-1) midfielder Jaclyn Leto.
The Chatham, New Jersey native and two-time All-Ivy League First Team member has torched opponents early on, already netting a team-high 12 goals and 13 points.
Robertshaw said her players will key in on limiting Leto, all in an attempt to keep her off the scoreboard.
“We want to try to keep the ball out of Jaclyn Leto’s hands, but that’s a tough order,” Robertshaw said. “We’re just going to make sure that defensively, we have her eyes on her and we try to slow her down a little bit and not allow so many shots.”
Robertshaw also said her team needs to win the draw-control battle to keep Dartmouth from having easy opportunities to score.
“In our win and even our loss against UMass, I thought we did a good job of getting the ball on our sticks,” Robertshaw said. “I think we need to be a little bit more of a presence on offense so that we limit the amount of time Dartmouth has the ball.”
The turnover battle has played a big part in the Terriers’ games so far this season, and it will once again be a statistic that could determine the outcome of Tuesday’s matchup.
So far, BU has lost the turnover battle this season by a combined margin of 56-44. Even in BU’s victory over Fairfield University, the Terriers still had more turnovers than the Stags (2-2).
“Whenever we have the turnovers, they tend to be because people reacted to a player, got nervous in the moment, and that’s something that a lot of young athletes have,” Robertshaw said. “We’re going to try to combat that by continuing to push them and bring their confidence to the table.”
Robertshaw said addressing the turnover battle should come down to BU’s mental approach.
“If we allow them to second-guess themselves or the game plan, then turnovers are going to happen, so I think we’re doing a better job right now of being more aggressive and taking chances which will boost the confidence of our players,” she said.
In both of BU’s losses, the team struggled to come out of the gate ready to compete and found itself playing catch-up against quality opponents.
With some subtle tweaks in her team’s pre-game routines, Robertshaw said she expects a better start to Tuesday’s matchup than in previous contests.
“The slow starts are something we’ve addressed,” she said. “It’s something that we’re looking to make some changes in our pre-game routine. We’re not going to ignore it. We’re going to address it, we’re going to make changes and we’re going to see if we can start off a little faster.”
