With the opportunity to claim the America East regular season title outright, the Boston University women’s soccer team will face the University at Albany at Nickerson Field on Thursday night.
Coming off a 4-0 win over Binghamton University on Sunday, the Terriers (12-5-0, 6-0-0 AE) will have the conference title all for themselves if they can get past the Great Danes (8-6-2, 3-1-2 AE). They could set a program record in the process as well if they record their 10th straight victory of the season.
Albany is on a winning streak of its own, having beaten University of Maine and University of Maryland-Baltimore County in its past two contests.
“It’s great to earn the title outright and secure the number-one seed in the conference,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “Right now, if the season were to end today, we’d be tied with [the University of New Hampshire] for the regular-season title. So we want that all to ourselves. We want to be holding that trophy up alone on Thursday night.”
The Terriers have scored 28 goals over the past nine wins and the goalkeeping tandem of freshman Kelly King and junior Alice Binns has not allowed a goal since then-No.12 University of Virginia notched three goals against BU on Sept. 12. That was also the last time the Terriers suffered a loss.
Graduate student forward Lisa Kevorkian and junior forward Jessica Luscinski have been at the forefront of this offensive outburst as they rank first and second in AE with 12 goals and nine goals respectively. Kevorkian was nominated for AE Fans’ Choice Player of the Year.
Junior forward Tiya Gallegos is third on the team and tied for fifth in the conference with five goals of her own. In her first three injury-riddled years donning the scarlet-and-white, Gallegos had only posted three goals in 24 contests. This season has been a 180-degree turnaround for her to say the least.
“We’d like Tiya to create her own opportunities,” Feldman said last week after Gallegos tallied three goals and an assist in victories over University of Hartford and University of Vermont. “For her, that means receiving it and using her strength, quickness and power to beat her opponents. And she’s definitely been doing that.”
The Great Danes have outshot their opponents, 264-192, but have been outscored by a margin of 21-16. Leading the way for Albany on offense is forward Shayla Bergeron, who has netted eight goals on the year. She’s behind Kevorkian and Luscinski in AE in the goal-scored department. Sophomore midfielder Maggie DeVerna is Albany’s central playmaker, as she has dished out a team-high three assists.
Albany’s freshman midfielder Katie Dunn was named this week’s AE Rookie of the Week after she scored her first collegiate goal in the Great Danes’ 1-0 win over the Black Bears last Thursday. Before that victory, Albany had not beaten Maine in its last nine meetings.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
