The last time the Boston University women’s lacrosse team played, it had to overcome a big halftime deficit against Lafayette College to claim victory.
When playing host to the University of New Hampshire Wednesday on Nickerson Field, the Terriers (7-6, 4-2 Patriot League) found themselves down early, but eventually cruised to a 14-7 victory in their last non-conference game of the season.
Going into the game, the Wildcats (6-7) were 6-0 when holding their competitors to less than 10 goals per game, but winless when opponents surpassed that number. Accordingly, BU needed a plethora of players to contribute. That’s exactly what happened.
Freshman midfielder Kelly Mathews and senior midfielder Ally Adams each recorded hat tricks, while sophomore attack Mickenzie Larivee, classmate Sarah Anderson and senior midfielder Jill Horka recorded two goals each.
BU head coach Liz Robertshaw had nothing but praise for all the players that made their way into the scorer’s book.
“I thought it was awesome,” Robertshaw said. “The fact that so many people got in the mix … it just showed that we moved the ball well, and that people are willing to step up and score.”
Perhaps most crucial among those impact players was Mathews. The Reston, Virginia native upped her point tally to 13 for the season and noted that she and her teammates had been working on getting more players involved.
“I think we’ve been doing a good job lately of working to get our teammates open and feed off each other,” Mathews said. “It just looks really good when we can get our teammates open and work with each other.”
While BU gave up the first two goals of the game, its ability to counter offensively made up for its defense. Junior goalkeeper Caroline Meegan had six saves on 16 shots, thwarted five of UNH’s eight free position shots and came up with several reflex saves in front of her stout defense.
“For us all season, especially this game, the most important thing on our defense is to have good 1-on-1’s,” Meegan said. “Another component we put in today is having good 1-vs-1’s with good help up top, being able to … deter the UNH attackers from coming in the eight.”
The turning point of the game came midway through the first half. With the Wildcats up 4-3 with 9:47 remaining in the stanza, Mathews tallied her second goal off an assist from junior attack Taylor Hardison. BU then responded with four more goals to go into the locker room with an 8-4 lead.
Although UNH found the back of cage to open the second half, that was the closest it got to trimming the Terriers’ lead.
BU closed on a 6-2 run and with the victory, improved to 24-14 all-time against its former America East rivals.
“For us, this is a confidence-builder,” Meegan said. “It’s a non-conference game and they’re a very tough team. We always battle with them, and for us it’s a confidence-builder going into [the United States Naval Academy]. We had a lot of things working today, so we’re using that to bring it down to Navy hoping for a win.”
The win also bumped the Terriers to above .500 for the first time all season and gave them back-to-back triumphs for the first time since mid-March, when they defeated Bucknell University and Vanderbilt University.
With a mere three games remaining until the Patriot League Tournament, now is the right time to be trending upward. Robertshaw said she is confident ahead of this weekend’s road bout against Navy (8-5, 3-2 Patriot League).
“It’s still going to be challenging,” Robertshaw said. “Navy is a great team and we’re going to have to get through them. We also have [the College of the Holy Cross] coming up and [the United States Military Academy], but this team is playing better and better.
“I challenged them to be focused in this game against a non-conference opponent that would be easy to overlook, and they didn’t [overlook them],” Robertshaw added. “They came out and finished a strong game against UNH. I think that shows we’re able to rise to the challenges I set.”
