The Boston University women’s soccer team has not had an easy job over the last nine days. The Terriers played to their third tie in four games over that stretch Wednesday afternoon, finishing a somewhat lackadaisical 110-minute battle against Dartmouth College with a 1-1 score.
The recent extra minutes showed their effects throughout the game, as the team played sluggish soccer over the first half and final overtime period, and during parts of the second half. In the end, with the help of several tough saves from senior goalie Jessica Clinton, the team could only capitalize on one of a number of scoring opportunities the seventh goal this season from sophomore forward Melissa Shulman and came away with the tie.
After the game, BU coach Nancy Feldman said she was disappointed with the Terriers’ lethargic performance, saying the team simply was not focused enough against a tough non-conference opponent.
‘It was a winnable game today, and when you have a winnable game and you’re at home, then you should win the game,’ Feldman said. ‘And we should have won the game.’
BU had several scoring opportunities midway through the first half, but the Big Green got on the scoreboard first, as Dartmouth forward Lea Kiefer punched the ball past Clinton to the back of the net at 16:46. Kiefer’s goal her sixth in the last four games continued her recent hot play.
The goal spoiled Clinton’s second bid to break BU’s career shutout mark, as she has been stuck at 20 since she shut out the University of Vermont 2-0 last week. But Clinton said she isn’t getting frustrated.
‘I don’t think about it, even though my teammates think about it more than me,’ Clinton said. ‘As long as we win, I don’t really care shutout-wise.’
The Terriers could have won if they had capitalized on several golden first-half opportunities. Senior tri-captain Rebecca Beyer had one chance in the game’s eighth minute on a breakaway opportunity, but she tapped the ball off the left post and out of bounds. That chance sparked several minutes of aggressive Terrier play, including a great opportunity off a free kick from senior back Emily Dionne and a near-breakaway for sophomore forward Megan Cook.
Dartmouth goalie Anne Marbarger also made several picturesque saves during the game to keep the Terriers off the board. But Feldman said the onus fell mostly on the Terriers’ torpid play for the first-half goose egg.
‘We had much better chances than they did in the first half,’ Feldman said. ‘When we start playing more competitive games in tournament time or leading up to tournament time you may only get a couple of chances. We looked too relaxed on those chances.’
But Shulman did not let a scoring opportunity pass her by at the start of the second half. Sophomore midfielder Brooke Bingham headed a second-minute goal kick to sophomore back Susan Marschall, who passed it up to Shulman. The forward, who had sprinted past her defender on the left, knocked the ball over Marbarger’s right shoulder and through the pipes.
‘I kind of read that she [Bingham] was going to win the ball she’d been pretty dominant in the air and holding the ball and stuff for us,’ Shulman said. ‘She got on the end of it and I just took off and beat my defender and the ball was on my foot and I knew.’
Several players said the goal changed the tone of the game, but the Terriers would be frustrated for the rest of the contest. Despite numerous lengthy pushes into the Dartmouth zone, including several in the first overtime period, the team was unable to push home the game-winner.
Feldman said she was dissatisfied with the game, which she called an opportunity to beat a Dartmouth squad that normally plays the Terriers tough.
‘Dartmouth is always a good team, but I felt like [this year] we were a better team,’ Feldman said. ‘I thought we were a more dangerous team and we missed an opportunity to get a win.’
Clinton said the team’s tough recent stretch showed during the first half.
‘We just didn’t come out how we usually come out,’ she said. ‘Maybe we were tired a bit, but we just looked really sluggish.’
But Feldman said the 4 p.m. start may have also played into the team’s lackluster first half.
‘It’s hard to play a 4 o’clock in the afternoon game,’ Feldman said. ‘You just get out of class, you have to switch gears, but you’ve got to do it. They have to do it they came down on a bus ride in the middle of the week we have to do it.’
‘I don’t think that we came out with the kind of mentality as we do in a 7 p.m. game or a game that maybe we’re more geared up for because it’s a conference game or whatever,’ Feldman added later.
Regardless, Feldman will give her players today off and have a weightlifting-only practice Friday before they travel to New Jersey to take on the Princeton University Tigers Monday.
‘It’s good for us we need a little break,’ Shulman said.