With goals from sophomore Jessica Luscinski, senior Taleen Dimirdjian, freshman Megan McGoldrick, and senior Farrell McClernon, the Boston University women’s soccer team won its third straight America East conference title, defeating Binghamton University, 4-0, on Saturday afternoon at Nickerson Field.
‘Three in a row, tough to do, tough to do,’ BU coach Nancy Feldman said. ‘Great senior class, they’ve been contributing since they got here. The kids know what they need to do, and they are committed and disciplined to do it. I am really proud of them because of that.’
The Terriers (14-5-2, 7-1-0 AE) earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with their victory over the Bearcats (9-7-2, 6-2-0) in the America East championship game.
BU took an early 1-0 lead in the 11th minute off a free kick when Luscinski struck the ball into the far left corner of the net, past the outstretched hands of Binghamton goalkeeper Jen McEachron.
‘We all got out, got the foul, and it was central enough for me to just take the shot. I’ve been practicing those shots so practice paid off,’ Luscinski said on the set piece that resulted in her sixth goal of the season. ‘Originally, I was thinking about looking for a cross, but it was so far central. It was at a very hard angle to hit someone and make it easy for them to have to flick it, so I decided I would shoot.’
Over the first 45 minutes of play, the Bearcats matched up evenly with the Terriers, getting outshot by a close margin of 6-5, drawing the same number of corners, and creating their own scoring opportunities.
Feldman said the Binghamton defense made quite an effort in the first half to shut down a potent BU offense that had been red hot against conference opponents.
‘We never really got a rhythm in the first half, and they did a really good job defending us,’ she said. ‘When you’re the underdog, you come in with a game plan to try to take the higher rated team out of their game. Until we got the second goal, they were in the game.’
The second half, however, was a different story. It belonged completely to the Terriers.
In the 51st minute, BU extended its lead to 2-0 thanks to Dimirdjian, whole stole the ball from a Binghamton defender in the box and put it away into the bottom right corner of the goal.
‘I just wanted to be really aggressive today and just go for everything and I got the goal,’ Dimirdjian said.
Feldman said her team had a comfortable cushion and a firm hold on the game after Dimirdjian doubled BU’s lead.
‘Once we got the second goal, you could see the game just opened up because [Binghamton’s] commitment to what they had to do took so much energy,’ Feldman said. ‘It was going to be hard [for them] to sustain [that energy] for 90 minutes.’
McGoldrick continued her impressive freshman campaign, scoring BU’s third goal of the game and her fifth of the season in the 78th minute off a cross from McClernon.
BU put the exclamation point on its dominant championship game performance at the 82:28 mark in the second half when McClernon headed in BU’s final goal of the game off a corner kick from sophomore Brittany Heist.
‘I think that was my first header goal that I’ve ever had in a game,’ McClernon said. ‘It was pretty exciting. I was just trying to get the first touch, and it went in the right direction.’
After the game, McClernon added that this team is truly something special and is one of the best she’s played on in her four years at BU.
‘Out of all the teams I’ve played on, this is by far the most experienced,’ she said. ‘We have a really old team, in a good way, and we’ve been through a lot together. I think the younger players have just really picked up on the mentality. There is a ton of heart.’
BU will find out its first-round NCAA Tournament opponent on Monday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN News.
‘I think we know that we can play with anybody,’ Feldman said.’ ‘I believe we’re confident. Our players are confident that they can play with anybody no matter what conference, what rating the team is. We can play with anyone in the country.’
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