Although the Terriers (8-7, 3-5 Patriot League) finished their third season with five straight losses and missed the Patriot League Tournament, the team was still able to record its first winning season in program history.
Sophomore attack Ryan Hilburn led the way for BU with five points, while freshman attack James Burr notched three goals. Burr, a native of Hamilton, Massachusetts, finished the season with a team-high 28 goals, but his efforts weren’t enough against a talented Duke (11-7) team.
“I thought it was a little bit of a microcosm of our season, where at times we played at a really high level and were able to compete and then other times we made critical mistakes,” said BU coach Ryan Polley. “Against a team like Duke, they’re going to make you pay for it. In the first quarter, we fought and got ground balls and were efficient on offense and created a lot of scoring opportunities.”
The Terriers were able to compete with the Blue Devils during the first quarter. Duke may have gotten on the board first, but Burr would find the back of the net off of an assist from Hilburn to tie the game at one with 5:50 remaining in the period.
Eventually, the Blue Devils wore down the Terriers with their offense, the fourth-best in the country. Duke took 20 shots to BU’s two in the second quarter, allowing Duke to take an 8-3 halftime lead.
Goals by Hilburn and BU junior midfielder Cal Dearth helped keep the Terriers somewhat in the game. Polley believed his team could have done more to keep Duke from exploding in the quarter, though.
“I thought we could have competed a little bit better,” Polley said. “[There were] a couple of 50-50 ground balls that they came away with, which I thought we had an opportunity to have. We made some poor decisions on defense, we allowed them and their shooters to get free and shoot the ball from wherever they wanted.”
Polley also noted that turnovers again hurt his team. BU had 19 turnovers in the game, and finished the year seventh in the conference in turnovers per game.
“We turned the ball over, several of which were completely unforced,” Polley said. “Against a team like Duke, those second chance opportunities give them the ball more than they should have based on controlling possession.”
The third quarter was more of the same, as Duke tallied the opening four goals of the period. BU didn’t score until Dearth put one in off a Hilburn assist with 43 seconds remaining.
The Blue Devils ran away with the game because of the Terriers’ struggle with faceoffs. With regular faceoff specialist junior Sam Talkow out, senior specialist Elliot Burr took 22 of BU’s 26 faceoffs in his last game as a Terrier. With Duke winning 65.4 percent of its faceoffs in this contest, the backup Burr was only able to win eight of 22 in the game for BU.
The fourth quarter was a back-and-forth battle, with the Terriers scoring four of the last six goals in the game. James Burr and sophomore attack Jack Wilson scored 34 seconds apart from each other early in the period. Then, with a minute remaining in the game and the outcome certain, Burr and Dearth would notch goals in a span of 23 seconds to close out the Terriers’ season.
Although BU struggled during the second half of the season, there were a lot of improvements in this young team that impressed Polley and his staff.
“We proved that we can play at a really high level,” Polley said. “We were up for the majority of the [Loyola University Maryland] game, we beat [the United States Naval Academy] at home and both teams are in the NCAA tournament. There’s a lot of talent on this team, we have a lot of talent coming back. We can play with the majority of the teams in the country, if not every single team in the country, when we’re playing at a really high level.”
Polley, however, said he knows that there is more work to be done with his squad this offseason. The main focus, he said, will be staying consistent.
“The one thing we were consistent about is that we were inconsistent, and that just led to some really strong ups and some really low lows,” Polley said. “That’s something that we’re going to have to work on as a staff and as a team. We need to be more consistent in everything we do, from strength and conditioning to our practice to our games from quarter to quarter. Now we just have to execute.”
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
