With its sixth win in the last seven games and its first four-goal game of the year, the Boston University men’s soccer team clinched its 10th America East regular-season championship in a 4-0 win over Binghamton University Wednesday night.
Binghamton (4-6-4, 2-2-2 AE) was one of the possible challengers to BU’s (10-4-1, 5-1-0) title as they went into the game tied for second place in the conference. But the Terriers have pulled away and now lead the conference with 15 points &- Stony Brook University and University of Maryland-Baltimore County are second with 11 points apiece &- with just one conference game left to play.
The Terriers kept the Bearcats back on their heels through most of the first half, racking up six corner opportunities without allowing Binghamton one, although they could not capitalize on any of those set plays. Senior midfielder Ryan Shea and junior forward Ben Berube each sent a few balls high and wide of the net before senior forward Aaron O’Neal put BU on the board with less than five minutes left in the first.
On a three-on-two rush, Binghamton goalkeeper Chris Hayen came out to challenge O’Neal, who maneuvered around him and fired the ball into the top right corner of the net. Junior midfielder Michael Bustamante, who has not had the offensively explosive season many expected of him after a 14-point sophomore campaign, assisted on the goal for his sixth point of the year.
“Michael’s been playing better the last couple games,” said BU coach Neil Roberts. “Michael’s had a difficult year. He’s worked real hard. It just hasn’t gone his way. I think the last two games have been much better for him. We’re happy with that, and we need Michael to be Michael going down the stretch, especially in the playoffs.”
In the second half, the game broke open in the Terriers’ favor. O’Neal joined Berube on a two-on-one rush downfield, and while both the Binghamton defender and Hayen chose to focus on preventing the pass to O’Neal, Berube held onto the ball and sent a low shot into the far corner.
Six minutes later, Shea, who had seen a number of quality chances denied by Hayen or blocked by Bearcat defenders, got a bizarre but lucky break. Shea kicked the ball high, toward the crossbar, and when Hayen leapt up to make sure it didn’t sneak into the net, the ball caromed off the bar into his hands and then into the net behind him.
“[Shea] had some great chances and then he got a goal the way he got a goal,” Roberts said. “The game was crazy.”
BU slowed the pace of the game down to something occasionally resembling a passing drill, leading 3-0 with 30 minutes left to play. They were able to relax even more when freshman midfielder Vicente Colmenares scored his first career goal at 80:46.
Colmenares raced downfield after receiving a pass from freshman midfielder Anthony Ciccone, with O’Neal again cutting down the middle and drawing the attention of the defense so that Colmenares could cross a low shot past Hayen, making it 4-0.
Redshirt freshman and sophomore goalkeepers Brandon Briggs and Trevor McManamon combined for two saves in the Terriers’ seventh shutout of the year.
Despite preventing Binghamton from threatening offensively for most of the night, Roberts said he still sees room for improvement on defense.
“I think our possession could be better and sharper,” Roberts said. “It’s tough in conference because there’s so much at stake, but I think we could be sharper. Defensively, our shape needs some work, but I think they recognized that today, and hopefully we can start that going into the tournament.”
Last year, BU struggled in conference play, finished sixth in the standings and bowed out in the first round of the AE tournament. Roberts said that this year’s team, though they are younger, has shown signs of being more competitive than the 2009 squad.
“Last year maybe we had a little problem with people wanting to do different things than what they needed to do, and maybe thinking they can contribute more in a different way,” Roberts said. “[This year] the roles that we put them in, they’re accepting, and that’s been changing. Guys have been starting and not starting and playing different roles, but whatever we’ve asked them to do, they’ve done it. I think that’s the reason we’ve been able to bounce back like we have.”
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.
