Despite the Boston University men’s lacrosse team suffering a tough 8-7 loss Saturday at the hands of Lehigh University, there were bright spots.
One of those was the performance of sophomore attack Ryan Hilburn, who notched a point in the Terriers’ (8-3, 3-2 Patriot League) final three goals of the contest. The West Chester, Pennsylvania native assisted on freshman midfielder Michael Laviano’s goal and knotted two, one of which was a man-up chance.
Hilburn, who tallied 25 goals and 15 assists last season, has missed four games due to injury. Yet, Saturday’s game suggested that he may be coming back and carving out a more advanced role for himself. BU head coach Ryan Polley was pleased with Hilburn’s performance and is excited about the return of a viable scoring option.
“Each week, he’s progressing back a little bit, so we’re just trying to find a good fit for him,” Polley said. “Certainly our attack was playing well while he was injured, and Ryan came in and gave us a nice boost for sure. It’s on us to figure out roles for all four of them — certainly we’re trying to figure that out. Ryan did a great job, it was great to have him back and we’re looking forward to having one more option on offense.”
Terriers hope to avoid late-season struggles
Only three conference games stand in the way of BU participating in its first-ever Patriot League Tournament. However, the Terriers must be careful in avoiding the type of late-season slump it endured last year.
The 2015 Terriers started the season at 6-2 before losing their last six contests, narrowly missing out on a berth in the playoffs. However, Polley and his coaching staff don’t believe they have to adjust anything because of history.
“I think it’s important to remember we played really strong teams,” Polley said regarding last year. “I know we faltered a little bit last year, but we did play Duke [University] and Loyola [University Maryland], and Harvard [University] was at the back end of our schedule.
“Same thing this year,” Polley added. “We’re playing some great teams, and if we want to take that next step as a program, we need to figure out how to play well and put ourselves in the position to win the game and be a little bit different than what we were Saturday and figure out how to win it.”
Second midfield line fighting for playing time
An interesting takeaway from the Lehigh (6-4, 4-2 Patriot League) game was the midfield line of freshman Tristan Ruh, junior Sam Tenney and sophomore Hayden Ruiz hardly factoring.
Ruiz was the only one who saw the field against the Mountain Hawks, while junior Chad Bell, sophomore Greg Farris and Laviano formed a midfield line and totaled three goals. Polley said his team is simply riding the hot hand, and for the most part, it has paid off.
“We make a lot of our decisions by how people do in practice and how well they’re practicing,” Polley said. “Bell and Laviano were just practicing really well, so we felt obligated to give them the chance. They played great at Harvard [University], and then we had Lafayette [College], where everybody got to play. The third line passed the second line. We just stayed with them and they did a great job.”
Scoring trifecta expected to bounce back against Army
With every game now a crucial one for the Terriers, Polley will look for his go-to players to bounce back in a big way in their next game against the United States Military Academy. The Black Knights (7-3, 4-1 Patriot League) are led by attack Cole Johnson, a 2015 second team All-Patriot League member who has notched 50 points in 10 games.
If BU wishes to keep up with Johnson and the Black Knights, freshman attack James Burr, sophomore attack Jack Wilson and junior midfielder Cal Death will need to play their typically efficient games. The trio combined for a goal and two assists in the loss to Lehigh, a far cry from their usual numbers.
“We’re only going to be as good as those guys [are] as we get into these really tough games,” Polley said. “We’re going to lean on these guys more and more … We’re 8-3 because of those guys, and we’re going to give those guys opportunities to make plays … We’re confident they’re going to bounce back and have a great week against Army.”
Jonathan Sigal contributed to the reporting of this article.
Nick is currently writing for the Boston Hockey Blog. In the past, he has served as associate sports editor, and has covered men's and women's cross-country, women's soccer, men's basketball, and men's lacrosse for the Daily Free Press. You can keep track of Nick's exciting life by following him on Twitter at @nikfraz14
