The seconds were counting down to win number 100 at Boston University for women’s soccer head coach Nancy Feldman, and most of her veteran players were on the sidelines with the 3-1 win over Fairfield University all but sealed up on Saturday night.
Feldman was just as focused on the field as she would have been if it were a tie game, but seniors Rebecca Beyer and Lesley Garvey and red-shirt sophomore Melissa Shulman were hovering over the Gatorade jug wondering whether to dump it on Feldman when the game ended.
Unable to make a decision to dump or not to dump, Shulman headed for her coach with a couple of water bottles ready to be emptied.
‘People couldn’t wait,’ Garvey said. ‘I said ‘Oh no we’ve got the big jug,’ but oh well.’
Feldman had a different explanation for why she was spared the contents of the jug and subjected to only a couple of water bottles.
‘They smartened up,’ she joked.
It was a light moment from a coach who has demanded a lot from her players during her nine years as the only head coach in the history of the BU varsity program. More often than not, her players have responded to those demands, giving her two America East Championships just 53 losses and eight ties over the years, to go along with the triple-digit wins.
Feldman downplayed the career achievements and instead choose to focus on the accomplishments of this year’s team.
‘It’s really just a number,’ she said. ‘I’m glad really that we were able to get back to .500 because we started out the season in a little bit of a hole.’
In the last two games, the Terriers have scored half as many goals as they did all of last season and the result has been two wins in decisive fashion. The aggressiveness that Feldman has preached to her team paid off on Saturday night.
BU was clinging to a one-goal lead with less than 13 minutes to play in the second half when senior Katie Chen booted the ball into a cluster just inside the 18-yard box. Fairfield goalie Katie Ely came up to try and grab the ball as Shulman made a charge toward it, while a Fairfield defender joined the scrum.
Shulman emerged forward with the ball and only the net in front of her. Her third goal of the season gave the Terriers some much-needed breathing room and Shulman celebrated it by pulling her shirt over her head and raising her arms in triumph. Chen’s goal at 83:39 clinched the win for BU.
‘It was definitely motivation for us to come out and [win] it for coach,’ Garvey said. ‘She puts so much effort into her job. It’s great to see her rewarded.’
Some people, including Feldman, expected the 100-win mark to come last season, but the Terriers stumbled to a 7-10-2 record last season and failed to earn a berth to the season-ending conference tournament.
‘I expected to get it last year,’ she said. ‘Last year was disappointing. Did the kids work hard? Yes. We just had some bad losses. We couldn’t finish. So we had to wait a little longer.’
This year, Feldman is determined to make sure the players don’t experience a season like the last one. She has installed a slogan for this year’s team ‘contribute to the tradition.’
‘I feel like each team that comes after the one before it has a responsibility to contribute to the tradition that was started back in 1995 and was built on after that,’ she said. ‘I felt we needed to get back to that last year. I felt that last year was a bump in the road I didn’t want people to forget how successful this program had been.’
‘I think it’s very significant that the win comes in a year when that’s really what we’re trying to accomplish,’ Feldman added later. ‘Year in and year out, players have to come into this program and feel like it’s an honor to put on a jersey.’
Senior tri-captain and goalie Jessica Clinton remembers Feldman as one of the main reasons she chose to come to BU four years ago.
‘You hear a lot about coach Feldman and she’s well-known all over the country,’ Clinton said. ‘She knows everything about the game. Every system she knows. I can’t describe it. You just have to sit with her in practice, because she knows so much.’
Clinton, for her part, is trying to contribute to the tradition this year by passing the career shutout record of 20 games held by Meghan Lynch. She was in line to notch shutout number 19 until Fairfield’s Megan King scored her sixth goal of the season at the 84:31 mark. Clinton wasn’t too disappointed after the game at losing her shutout try.
‘I’d rather take a win than a shutout,’ she said.
Clinton’s not the only one with a milestone in her future. Feldman’s win was also number 192 for her career (192-77-16), which includes head coaching stints at Plymouth State University and Lake Forest College. That total doesn’t include her wins as the women’s basketball coach at Plymouth State. ‘That would really put it up higher there’s a lot more games in basketball,’ she said.
‘It makes me proud to have more wins than losses, although I probably wouldn’t still be coaching if it was the other way around,’ Feldman said. ‘If you stay in it long enough, you’re going to get 200 wins.’
Hopefully by that time her players will have the Gatorade shower organized.