In preparation for its spring break trip to the West Coast, the Boston University women’s lacrosse team will host Dartmouth College on Wednesday afternoon at Nickerson Field.
The Terriers (1-1) are looking to build a win streak against an undefeated Big Green (3-0) squad that has started its season off in an impressive fashion.
BU will also be aiming to avenge its narrow 15-13 loss at Dartmouth last season, when the home side had a 4-2 run after halftime.
Following that hard-fought battle, both teams went in opposite directions. The Terriers responded by winning nine of their last 14 games to finish with a 10-8 record, and they ended the season with an above .500 record for the first time since 2012, when they went 11-5.
While BU finished with momentum, the Big Green went into the offseason lacking the dominance they had early in the season. Their home triumph against the Terriers lifted them to a 3-1 record, but an inconsistent March led them to a 7-8 record. All but one of those victories came at home. This season, however, Dartmouth already has won more road contests (two) than it did last year largely because of its potent offense.
The Big Green have outscored their three opponents 44-28, courtesy of strong play from senior attacker Courtney Weisse, junior forward Cara DePippo and sophomore attacker Kierra Sweeney. Weisse and DePippo have the same offensive statistics (10 goals, 13 points) while Sweeney (six goals, 10 points) is not far behind.
With the trio combining for 24 of the Big Green’s 44 goals, the Terriers will have their hands full trying to defend them, but BU head coach Liz Robertshaw said that the best defense starts with a good offense.
“The biggest thing we want to do is have ball possession,” Robertshaw said. “Defensively, we have to play team defense. Having watched some video, when players try to take [Weisse, DePippo and Sweeney] out one-on-one, they’re better than that, they can beat a one-on-one, but we need to make sure that our entire defensive unit is ready to mark those players.”
If the Terriers are able to limit at least one player of the DePippo-Sweeney-Weisse dynamic, they will need their offense to play as well as it did last Saturday against University of Massachusetts Lowell.
BU had four different players registering two goals against the River Hawks (0-2), two of whom were leading goal-scorers junior attacker Avery Donahoe and senior attacker Elisabeth Jayne with five apiece.
Though Robertshaw was satisfied with the way her team finished the win against Lowell, she was not pleased with how the game began.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Robertshaw said. “In the first half, I thought, other than the first two goals, we were a little stagnant. We got a little rattled, we weren’t locked into our game plan, but we addressed it. In the second half, we committed as a group to getting back to playing our style of lacrosse, of moving the ball, of working our offensive systems against their man and zone defenses.”
Having such offensive balance helps make up for the Terriers’ slow beginning to the season. Donahoe and Jayne are also one-two in the points column (eight and seven, respectively) followed by senior attacker Taylor Hardison (six).
Despite the huge drop-off after Hardison in points, BU has seen 13 different players tally at least one point thus far.
For the Terriers to win back-to-back games, Robertshaw said they need to be committed to the game plan.
“We need to be locked into our game plan,” Robertshaw said. “We need to make sure that we’re finding the open looks that have presented themselves on video from Dartmouth. We have to be aggressive at cage. We have to be better shooters. We need to look to be shooting in the 40’s and 50’s [in shooting percentages] minimum. I want [the attackers] to shoot, I want them to feel confident, I just also want them to finish.”
Jordan Green contributed to the reporting of this article.
