Following its winless run in California during spring break, the Boston University women’s lacrosse team will play host to Fairfield University Wednesday afternoon at Nickerson Field.
The Terriers (1-4) are coming off losing 14-8 and 15-4 contests to San Diego State University and the No. 5 University of Southern California, respectively.
Giving up 29 goals while scoring just 12 is a glaring margin, but for BU head coach Liz Robertshaw, the experience out west was something her team needed.
“I thought it was a good learning experience for us to travel cross-country and play two solid teams,” Robertshaw said. “Playing San Diego State, a team that is a tough, blue collar team. I think they showed us some things about ourselves that we need to fight a little bit harder and that we need to be a little more composed under pressure situations.”
On top of the lopsided results the Terriers suffered, arguably the most damaging came from the shocking injury of junior midfielder/defender Sarah Andersen.
The Coronado, California native went down in her home state with an injury that Robertshaw believes will bring an end to her junior season.
Andersen is the team’s fifth-leading points scorer, so Robertshaw will be looking to the play of sophomores Kaitlin Belval (1 goal) and Kelly Mathews (6 goals) to rectify Andersen’s likely absence.
“[The midfield group] is predominantly made up of freshmen and sophomores who are on the field for us and I think we really need to look down at our attacking end with some of our juniors and seniors playing down there,” Robertshaw said.
“We need Mickenzie Larivee and [Elisabeth] Jayne and Taylor Hardison and Avery Donahoe to step up and take up reins on the attacking end so we don’t have to rely on that midfield unit which is so young and still working on their confidence.”
The Terriers attack will need to rebound Wednesday afternoon if they want to come out victorious against a high-scoring Fairfield (2-3) attack.
The Stags have scored at least 10 goals in all but one of their contests, with their season-opening eight tallies against Columbia University on Feb. 11 being their lowest scoring output thus far.
BU, which hasn’t broken double-digits in goal scoring since its Feb. 25 win over the University of Massachusetts Lowell, will need to limit the play of Stags players Riley Hellstein and Brenna Connolly.
The upperclassmen duo is Fairfield’s most prolific scorers, with Hellstein registering team-highs in goals (17) and points (18) while Connolly leads in assists (9) and is second in points (17).
Those two going up against the Terriers’ offensive tandem of junior attacker Avery Donahoe (8 goals, 12 points) and senior attacker Elisabeth Jayne (9 goals, 11 points) will be a matchup to watch, but for Robertshaw, the Hellstein-Connolly pairing will be one her team needs to neutralize.
“We need to slow [Hellstein and Connolly] down,” Robertshaw said. “In one of their most recent games, Riley Hellstein is scoring a lot of points and we need to slow her down … Brenna has done a good job from the crease position of speeding and dodging and being second on the team in points, so those are two players that we’re going to key in on but, we also have to be ready for every player on Fairfield’s attacking unit to go to cage.”
Despite the low spirits her team could have from the West Coast trip, Robertshaw believes those eye-opening encounters with San Diego State (4-2) and USC will make her team ready to play against the Stags.
“I think they’re excited to play,” Robertshaw said. “We’ve really been smart about it as a program to look back and see what we’ve learned from each game and I give a lot of credit to the senior leadership that they’ve kept the team in good spirits. We are just trying to get better every single day.”
