On a grim Wednesday afternoon at Nickerson Field, the Boston University women’s lacrosse team dropped a 19-7 game to Dartmouth College.
The Terriers (1-2) put themselves in an early hole, with a 10-4 deficit before the half against a rolling 4-0 Dartmouth squad. That six-goal deficit in the first half was also the largest deficit of the season up to that point for the Terriers. Once the Big Green gained their lead, they never looked back, as they built on that lead and doubled it to 12 by game’s end.
BU head coach Liz Robertshaw gave credit to the opponent for dominating from start to finish.
“They came at us hard,” Robertshaw said. “The Dartmouth-BU rivalry is something that’s been here a good amount of years so we knew that was going to be a challenge. We saw a team that came at us hard today.”
While BU and Dartmouth play each year, it hasn’t been much of a rivalry as of late. The Big Green have now won five of the past six contests.
With this defeat now behind them, the Terriers must now prepare for a West Coast trip to Southern California.
Robertshaw hopes her team will take this game to heart before embarking on the road trip.
“I hope they take this seriously, sometimes with things like [a road trip] you can get carried away, especially as a student-athlete,” Robertshaw said.
Dartmouth’s high flying offense that scores over 11 goals per game was the story of this game.
Four separate players recorded hat tricks for the Big Green. Midfielders Taryn Deck and Elizabeth Mastrio lit up the stat sheet, scoring four and five goals, respectively, and each player finished with six points.
It was clear things were going awry for BU when Robertshaw pulled Preseason All-Patriot League senior goalkeeper Caroline Meegan in favor of junior Christine Laible. Meegan is second in the nation in saves per game, but even she could not slow down the swarming Big Green. Neither goalie could stop the bleeding, as BU allowed a season-high 19 goals.
Robertshaw was blunt when talking about the decision to pull her star goalie.
“It was her performance — I didn’t think she was seeing the ball,” said Robertshaw. “And when Meegan started to let in a few goals I went to my other goalie.”
Robertshaw seemed frustrated with her offense, harping on her team’s poor shooting percentage, an issue that she has raised throughout the outset of the season.
The Terriers have struggled to get their shots on goal, as they currently have a 30.9 shooting percentage, a figure Robertshaw says she wants to see increase by at least 10 percentage points.
“We have to address what is causing the poor shooting,” she said.
Robertshaw didn’t hold back when talking about her midfielders either. Dartmouth midfielders, such as freshman standout Ellie Carson, had their way against BU.
“If I take a step back and recognize what our midfield is, it’s young,” Robertshaw said. “But our midfield today was soft. There’s no other way about it. We let them win the transition balls. We let them win the 50/50 balls. A lot of the goals against us were against our midfielders.”
A lone bright spot for the Terriers was senior attacker Elisabeth Jayne, who recorded a hat trick and now has a team-best eight goals for the season.
This was the final game before spring break where the Terriers will face San Diego State University and No. 5 University of Southern California.
“USC is obviously a very confident team,” Robertshaw said. “They are a team that is going to go hard at you. For us, I think we need to tighten up our offense. I think after this game we have a lot to get better on.”
