There’s no other way to splice it: the United States Military Academy visited Nickerson Field Saturday afternoon and outplayed the Boston University men’s lacrosse team from start to finish.
The Terriers (8-4, 3-3 Patriot League) had no answers for a dominant Black Knight (8-3, 5-1 Patriot League) squad and ultimately fell 15-4 in what marked their worst defeat of the season. Even though BU has often kept high-profile players under wraps, Army’s robust collection of talent had its way early and often.
Freshman AJ Barretto notched eight saves, the attack trio of Connor Cook, Cole Johnson and Nate Jones combined for eight goals and defenseman Austin Schultz, who was selected in the 2016 Major League Lacrosse draft, caused three turnovers.
Their performances were the highlights, and Army’s 9-1 halftime lead stunned the Terriers on their home field. Accordingly, BU head coach Ryan Polley said the performance just wasn’t good enough.
“We’ll get back to the drawing board and we’ve got to figure out a way to play four quarters because we haven’t done that in a while since Lafayette [College],” the third-year head coach said. “I thought Army played great. They made their shots, they shot the ball really well and we’ve got to find a way to play better. It’s on me, it’s on the coaching staff and we’ll prepare our guys. We’ve got to be ready to go from the first faceoff.”
Trying to spark any momentum swing, Polley pulled veteran goalkeeper Christian Carson-Banister in favor of sophomore Colin MacDougall, but neither could stand resolutely between the pipes. They only registered a combined eight saves, and the worst spell arose when Army rattled in three goals between the 3:56 and 3:24 marks of the first quarter.
Matters got even worse when freshman midfielder Brendan Homire went down with what appeared to be a right knee injury in the third quarter. While the Huntington, New York native’s production has slowed down as of late, he leads the team with 15 assists, and any long-term injury would require a new creative force to emerge.
One source of inspiration was senior faceoff specialist Elliot Burr, as he won 12 of his 19 draws. In winning possession, players such as attack Ryan Hilburn were given room to operate, and he did just that. The sophomore, who missed four games to injury and was last year’s second-highest point scorer, nabbed a hat trick against the Black Knights.
Polley was proud of Hilburn’s never-give-up attitude, and said that it’s now time for others to step up to the plate.
“We just haven’t gotten that over the last two games where we’re getting multiple guys with multiple goals,” Polley said. “Our first-line midfield needs to step up a little bit, and we’ll challenge them this week to be better. We need some points out of them. They were pretty much held scoreless this game, and it’s hard to win when your first midfield doesn’t score.”
The Terriers never cut the lead to less than seven, and it became easy to lose track of junior defenseman Greg Wozniak’s program record of six caused turnovers and what’s now a 23-game point streak for sophomore attack Jack Wilson.
BU is now stuck in its first losing streak of the season, and answers will need to come around quickly to avoid something similar to 2015’s six-game winless spell. Impeding those efforts will be yet another tall task, as a trip to No. 15 Loyola University Maryland awaits for next weekend.
The Greyhounds (8-3, 5-1 Patriot League) have already secured a spot in the Patriot League Tournament and boast the attack duo of Zach Herreweyers and Pat Spencer. Mindful of that, Polley stressed that it’s not time to panic, and the onus is on his team to make its season-long goal a reality.
“I’m sure they’re going to take this one loss really hard, and we’ve just got to bounce back,” Polley said. “We still have our goals in front of us. Our goal is to make the Patriot League Tournament, and it’s still right there. It’s attainable and in our control. We’ve just got to win one more game.”
Jonathan's a New Englander who writes about sports, features and politics. He currently covers men's hockey at BU, worked as Sports Editor during the spring 2016 semester and is on the FreeP's Board of Directors. Toss him a follow on Twitter at @jonathansigal.
