Mr. 300: Roberts reaches career milestone

The Boston University men’s soccer team came back to win 2-1 over the University of Massachusetts on Saturday, earning BU coach Neil Roberts his 300th career win.

Roberts, a six-time American East Conference coach of the year, has been affiliated with BU since 1979 and began his head coaching tenure in 1985. While the season’s tough opening schedule made the wait for the win longer than expected, Roberts finally has achieved this extraordinary milestone.

However, in typical Roberts fashion, his focus was on what this meant for this season’s team rather than his own personal milestone.

“It is a win we definitely needed as a group today,” Roberts said. “This young team is starting to come together. It was a battle, and it wasn’t a pretty game, but they found a way to win it.”

BU (2-4) fell behind in the 14th minute when UMass (1-6) defender Matt Keys scored on a pass from senior defender David Key. That lead held throughout the first half, and the Terriers seemed to be on their way to losing their fifth-straight game.

But in the second half, freshman defender James Holler scored a rebound goal after the initial shot from freshman forward Dominique Badji, tying the game at one in the 73rd minute.

“We knew at half we had to push guys forward, especially the outside backs,” Roberts said. “That was definitely by design.”

Two minutes after BU tied the game, UMass midfielder Brett Canepa was sent off with a red card, giving BU not only some momentum moving forward, but also a critical numbers advantage.

Then, in the 86th minute, freshman midfielder Cameron Souri put away the team’s second goal of the second half, and clinched the victory for the Terriers.

“He fought for that goal,” Roberts said. “It was good to see him fight for it. It wasn’t [Souri’s] type of game because it was so physical, but he handled it well.”

Alongside the good news of the win came the bad news of an injury, when senior Colin Henry, a former America East defender of the year, was knocked out of the game with a hamstring injury. As of Sunday evening, he is questionable for the Terriers’ next game at Brown University Friday night.

This victory was crucial for BU, which had not won a game since the season opener against College of the Holy Cross. With Roberts’ milestone achieved, the Terriers can focus on this season and winning the America East.

The Terriers won against UMass after losing to No. 1 University of Connecticut 1-0 on Friday. The loss was disappointing, but it also showed great potential for a team that had just lost its fourth-straight game.

As the top-ranked team in the nation, UConn (6-0) was expected to leave Nickerson Field with a blowout victory in hand. However, BU held UConn’s offense in check, and the Terriers even had some good scoring chances themselves.
BU began the game attacking, with senior forward Ben Berube intercepting a pass and shooting just over the goal seven seconds into the game. In fact, the Terriers had the first few chances of the game and seemed to catch the Huskies by surprise in the first 20 minutes.

Once the Huskies stopped the momentum of the Terriers, though, all the pressure went on freshman goalkeeper Nick Thomson. Thomson made some key saves on great chances by UConn forwards, and even when he wasn’t making saves, he was forcing bad shots with his aggressiveness.

“Nick’s a good goalkeeper,” Roberts said. “He just has to be patient and this team grows in front of him.

“We’ve had some fantastic goalkeepers over the years, and you’re going to see that Nick is going to be as good as anyone.”

The way BU played against UConn helped set up the win over UMass, according to Roberts, and the pair of games this weekend has given the Terriers some small momentum after losing four straight.

“We were very happy with the way we played at the UConn game,” Roberts said. “We started to create our identity as a team.”