The Boston University men's soccer team snapped a three-game losing streak this weekend with a 3-0 victory over the University of Rhode Island Friday and a 2-1 win over No. 21 Harvard University Sunday night.
From the start of Friday's game, the Terriers (5-3-1) played aggressively in URI's (2-5-0) zone, forcing goalkeeper Peyton Warwick to make three saves in the first 15 minutes.
Their energetic play earned them a free kick from about 20 yards out at 23:50, and junior forward Ben Berube's shot deflected off a URI defender and into the net for his first goal of the season.
Berube usually plays midfield, but took over as a forward on Friday as senior Aaron O'Neal and junior Stephen Knox, the regulars at the position, were healthy scratches. Junior midfielder Michael Bustamante was also scratched.
"I'm not happy with the leadership that they're showing," said BU coach Neil Roberts on Friday of the three players who sat out. "We've got a very young team, a lot of freshmen, and we need those older guys to be leaders more, to make good decisions, to help these young kids figure out what college life is about. We need those older kids to be able to do that, and we didn't think they were doing that. So we thought maybe this weekend, just sitting and watching more, they'd try to figure out between them how they can help us on and off the field just be a better group."
After Berube's goal, BU struck again with just 12 seconds left in the half. Senior forward Temi Akinsanya, who has seen limited playing time this year, received a long pass and found himself at the top of the URI box with a clear path to the net. Warwick stopped his original low shot, but Akinsanya's brother Ade, a sophomore, was right behind him to put home the rebound and give BU a 2-0 lead.
"I saw an opening, McCaffrey put it over and I hit it pretty hard," the elder Akinsanya said. "It ricocheted off and my brother was right behind me."
Berube put the game out of reach for URI at 58:34 with the most impressive goal of the night. Junior midfielder Ben Havey found Berube with a long pass downfield, and Berube managed to stay onsides long enough to control the ball, skirt the URI defenders and beat Warwick with a high shot that appeared to be headed for the tennis courts before it hooked into the top left corner of the net at the last moment.
"Their defense played pretty flat so I knew there was going to be space behind them," Berube said. "Ben Havey played a nice ball in to me, and I pretty much had a clean breakaway."
"We know he can go at people and cause some havoc, and the way they play, we figured that would be a good thing," Roberts said of the decision to play Berube as a forward.
"He made us look good and he made himself look good."
After a pair of rough outings last weekend, the Terrier defense and redshirt freshman goalkeeper Brandon Briggs got a bit of a break against the Rams. URI managed just two shots in each half and only one corner kick, and Briggs didn't have to make a single save.
Briggs had a similarly easy time on Sunday, breaking up a few of Harvard's (2-2-3) offensive chances but facing only one shot. That shot, however, was a perfectly placed free kick by Harvard midfielder Kyle Henderson that sailed into the top of the net for Harvard's only goal.
Henderson's goal pulled the Crimson into a 1-1 tie, as BU freshman back Kelvin Madzongwe had put the Terriers on the board at 26:24 with his first goal of the season. The goal was the result of a corner kick as Berube took a feed from the corner and found Madzongwe in front of the net for the redirect.
Though Knox, O'Neal and Bustamante all returned to the lineup on Sunday, Berube remained at the forward position, a decision that paid off for the Terriers early in the second half. Freshman midfielder Vicente Colmenares saved an attempted pass by O'Neal that almost rolled out of bounds and redirected the ball in front of the net to Berube, who caught Harvard goalkeeper Austin Harms out of position to tally his third goal of the weekend.
"This was a different type of team," Roberts said of Harvard.
"This team attacked, this team actually tried to win the game, where some of these teams we play are just concerned with not losing it. They really don't try to win. . .That's the way soccer's supposed to be played. Either team could have won that game. That's what college soccer should be."
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