After giving up a late six-goal lead against Harvard University the last time out, the Boston University men’s lacrosse team rebounded Saturday afternoon with a hard-fought 12-8 win at Lafayette College.
Senior attack Jack Wilson scored his 100th career goal, becoming the first player in the Terriers’ (5-5, 1-3 Patriot League) program history to do so, and setting the record for all-time points with 154.
“I thought we just grinded out a win and that was kind of the most important thing,” BU head coach Ryan Polley said. “We desperately needed this game, we desperately needed to get the first conference win and we did enough on both sides of the ball to win.”
While the Terriers have struggled to protect sophomore goalkeeper Joe McSorley in the last few games, allowing 19 goals to the Crimson (7-1) and 16 to Bucknell University on March 17, the BU defense stepped up against the Leopards (2-8, 0-5 Patriot League).
With BU’s constant pressure posing problems for the Lafayette attack, the Leopards were unable to maintain any offensive consistency.
McSorley responded to his team’s effort with a dominating performance, recording 13 saves and holding the Leopards to eight goals.
“I thought Joe had a great game,” Polley said. “I really thought he made some quality saves and really picked us up if we had some lapses on defense or made some mistakes, but I thought overall we played a better fundamental game. I thought we didn’t have as many defensive breakdowns as we kind of been having in past games.”
With the Terrier defense holding the Leopards in check throughout the matchup and producing extra opportunities, the BU offense was able to pick apart Lafayette on the attacking end.
Freshman attack Chris Gray continued his dominating stretch of play, contributing two goals and three assists, while Wilson and sophomore midfielder John MacLean chipped in with three goals apiece.
In perhaps the highlight of the game, Gray whipped a crisp behind-the-back feed to Wilson, giving the Terriers a 5-3 lead and leading a 4-0 scoring run midway through the second quarter.
Despite the offense’s solid statistical performance, Polley said he thought his offense’s decision-making and efficiency wasn’t as high as it has been in earlier matchups.
“Against Harvard, [the offense] put us in a position to win,” Polley said. “I think against Lafayette, they played okay. They played well enough for us to win and put up 12 goals, which is a nice number, but we have really high expectations of the offense and their ability to be efficient and score goals, and I think they have the ability to do more is probably the best way to say it.”
Though the Terriers did reach double-digit goals for the second game in a row, they faced a valiant effort from Lafayette junior goalkeeper Jonathan Anastos.
Anastos finished the game edging McSorley on the stat sheet with 14 saves of his own, providing a rare source of stability for the Leopards on the afternoon.
In stark contrast to their last matchup against Harvard, the Terriers refused to relinquish the lead this time out.
While senior midfielder Will McCarthy gave Lafayette a 3-2 lead early in the second quarter, Wilson began a four-goal run 30 seconds later that gave the Terriers the lead until the end of the contest.
As the game progressed into the fourth quarter, the Lafayette attack put out its best offensive effort all afternoon — scoring three goals — but the presence of McSorley in net put a damper on what looked to be a late rally for the Leopards.
“As poorly as we played against Harvard defensively, we needed to just figure out a way to get one more play or win one more faceoff or score one more goal,” Polley said. “We weren’t playing our best ball on either side of the field against Lafayette, but we were able to do enough to win the game.”
For a team that had gotten off to a slow start in Patriot League play thus far, the Terriers took a much-needed step in the right direction with Saturday’s win.
However, this confidence will be put the test a week from now when BU hosts Patriot League leader Lehigh University to Nickerson Field.
The Mountain Hawks (7-3, 4-1 Patriot League) feature a strong attack and suffocating defense, but are coming off a 10-7 loss to the United States Naval Academy, who also leads the conference with a 4-1 record.
“All these conference games are hard. They’re really good teams with really strong coaches,” Polley said. “At the end of the day, you just have to figure out how to make a couple plays and we did that against Lafayette so I was proud of that and now we have a huge game coming up against Lehigh.”
Nicole Havens contributed to the reporting of this article.
