Almost six weeks into its season, the Boston University men’s soccer team will try to win its first home game Wednesday when it takes on the University of New Hampshire at 7 p.m. at Nickerson Field.
The Terriers (5-5-1, 0-0-1 America East), to their credit, have not had many opportunities thus far, only playing in front of the friendly crowd twice losses to Boston College and to the University of Rhode Island. Do the math, and BU has played nine of its 11 games away from Boston. The Terriers are happy be home, however, for two crucial America East battles in four days. Wednesday it’s New Hampshire, Saturday it’s Northeastern University.
Junior back and co-captain Erik Evjen said BU is ready to play the two teams ranked just above and below it in the conference’s preseason coaches’ poll. Northeastern was voted No. 1, with the Terriers and New Hampshire rounding out the top three.
‘The team’s looking forward to playing two good games and seeing where we are in the conference,’ Evjen said. ‘This is what we fight for and what we look forward to.’
The Terriers come into the game unbeaten in their last two battles, tying the University of Vermont last weekend in their conference opener. BU did it in thrilling fashion, coming back from a three-goal deficit in the game’s final 15 minutes.
‘It was crazy,’ Evjen said of the comeback. ‘I’ve never ever experienced anything as ridiculous as that. We fought our way out of it, just like we have been doing all season. We just have to bring that to the next game.’
BU will certainly have to fight its way to a victory against an aggressive New Hampshire squad. The Wildcats (6-3-0, 1-0-0) enter Wednesday’s game coming off a 2-1 win over No. 25 Dartmouth College, handing the Big Green its first loss of the season. With the win, New Hampshire jumped from No. 6 to No. 4 in this week’s National Soccer Coaches of America Association New England Region poll. The Terriers came in at No. 9 this week.
‘They’re a good team,’ Evjen said, referring to the Wildcats. ‘They’re definitely a team you have to look for. They’re not like any other team in the conference because they’ve got some big, strong guys up front.’
Among those guys up front, New Hampshire shares the wealth on offense. In nine games this season, eight different players have scored goals with five players notching two scores thus far. Junior midfielder Tyler Jackson leads the team with three goals.
The Wildcats have platooned junior Mike Vignola and freshman Brian Levey in goal this season, with Vignola starting five games and Levey starting four. Vignola, however, has started three of the team’s last four contests and has only given up four goals in five games. The junior has three shutouts this year and owns an impressive 0.77 goals against average.
Evjen said New Hampshire uses an aggressive offensive attack, sometimes bringing an extra man into the opponent’s end to create more chances. The junior added that the Terriers have spent time in practice defending this formation, adjusting to the loss of senior back Michael Feely, who is out for the season with an injured knee.
‘With Feely out, we’re just trying to move some guys into his position and see how they work out,’ Evjen said. ‘[The New Hampshire offense] is something to adjust to, but I think we’ll deal with it pretty well.’
Already six weeks into the season, Evjen said he could not believe it has gone by so fast.
‘It seems like we haven’t started yet,’ Evjen said. ‘It’s been like a roller coaster. We haven’t been able to get going.’
BU will look to get going in the conference in Wednesday’s game against New Hampshire and Saturday’s game against Northeastern. Evjen said the next couple of games will factor in whether or not the Terriers have a chance to lengthen their season.
‘We only have three more weeks,’ he said. ‘Hopefully we can extend the season and be playing for longer than that.’