The Boston University men’s soccer team looks to earn its first road victory of the season against the College of the Holy Cross on Wednesday night.
This will be the second annual Turnpike Trophy game between the two sides. The Terriers (5-6-2, 1-3-2 Patriot League) won the inaugural game 2-1 last season over the Crusaders (5-7-3, 1-2-3 Patriot League).
This will be the last chance for the Terriers to record their first win away from Nickerson Field as they look to get back to .500 on the season. BU has just three regular season contests remaining before the Patriot League Tournament.
According to BU head coach Neil Roberts, the fact that BU has not earned a road win is due to poor execution and an inability to finish in big moments, not Nickerson Field.
“I don’t think it makes a difference,” Roberts said. “Every game has its own kind of life to it. There were games we played very well and didn’t get a result. I’d be a little more concerned if we hadn’t played well on the road, but in the Lehigh [University] and Bucknell [University] games, we dominated, but put ourselves in situations where we made it difficult to win the game.”
The Terriers have been sputtering as of late and have been under-performing in conference play. Injuries to junior midfielder Anthony Viteri and others have hampered the Terriers ability to play at full strength.
Roberts has remained positive throughout the year, but also observed this is perhaps the most competitive he has seen the Patriot League in his 32 years of coaching at BU.
Like the Terriers, Holy Cross is also winless on the road (0-5-2), but sports a 5-2-1 home record.
BU has a good opportunity to move up in the standings against a struggling Holy Cross team that has not recorded a victory since Sept. 24. The Crusaders are winless in their last seven contests and have gone 0-4-3 during this stretch. Still though, Roberts feels this game will be hard-fought.
“[Holy Cross] is good at counter attacking. They try to defend well and then catch you on the break. We have to do a good job to attack, as well as make sure we don’t get caught short.”
In their previous game, a 1-0 loss at the hands of the Mountaineers (6-8-1, 2-4 Patriot League), the Terriers could not capitalize on any of their 11 corner kicks or eight shots on goal.
“Lehigh is good defensively and it was quite windy out, but hopefully we can be dangerous on some of these Crusaders.”
In an attempt to give the team a boost with Viteri out, Roberts has recently brought versatile sophomore forward T.J. Butzke off the bench to finish games.
“It depends on the game,” Roberts said. “T.J. is a valuable player that can play many positions. It’s just a matter of where we need them and like I said starting isn’t the most important things. Starting isn’t the most important thing, even though players view it as like a badge of honor. But the most important thing is finishing.”
BU will look to finish strong on Wednesday night, and on the season. The team is currently sits in ninth place in the league out of a possible 10 teams, just one spot ahead of the United States Naval Academy.
Only the first six seeds make it into the Patriot League Tournament, but the sixth-seeded Bison (5-9-2, 2-3-1 Patriot League) are a mere two points up on the Terriers. BU still has a chance to make postseason play, but it’s an uphill battle that starts against the Crusaders.
Obviously the coach has no attacking forwards this season. He should look to others who may be on the bench.