After several defensive lapses leading to early Terrier losses, the Boston University women’s soccer team defense has been a stable point driving the team’s four-game win streak.
The Terriers are cruising right now, having completely turned around their defensive problems that led to several close losses against top-ranked competition early in the season.
Having come within minutes of a tie against the defending national champions Stanford University, the Terriers understood that the defense needed to improve if they were going to compete for a sixth straight America East regular season Championship, and possible at-large birth in the NCAA Tournament.
Entering the game against the University of Maine, the defense had shown steady improvements over the last two games against NC State and Albany.
Allowing only one goal in both games, the back line of the Terriers had played much better in both games, allowing significantly less penetration and fewer through-balls into Terrier territory.
The BU defense played well from the moment the game started. BU possessed the ball for the majority of the game, but whenever Maine had the ball, the defense was one step ahead of the Black Bears.
“You can start to see we’re playing a little bit more like a team,” said BU coach Nancy Feldman. “I think we look more like a team than we did four weeks ago. We got a big save in the first half by [junior goalkeeper] Andrea [Green]. That’s how you win some of these conference games. It takes you a while to break the other team down.”
After a little penetration into Terrier territory, Maine finally made a good run into Terrier territory in the 27th minute, but was cleared out by the wall in front of goalkeeper Andrea Green.
The Black Bears’ best chance to score came three minutes later when Maine Sophomore forward Liis Emajoe came off the bench and launched a threatening shot on net.
A symbol of the Terriers’ season, BU junior goalkeeper Andrea Green made a diving save to keep it a 0–0 score heading into halftime.
The Terriers eventually broke the game open in the second half, but even with the lead, the BU defense did not let up.
After the game, Feldman praised the defense for its performance.
“I thought the back four played great,” Feldman said. “It was a very solid clean game by them. They played all 90 minutes, all four of them. I thought they played a very, very good game.”
If there was one player who stood out from the group Thursday night, it was undoubtedly sophomore back Erin Mullen.
Mullen was a crucial part of the 2–0 win as she set up the winning goal for the Terriers and made her presence felt all over the field.
“It might have been her best 90 minutes since she’s been here at BU,” Feldman said of Mullen. “She was all over the place. She was winning the physical battles. She’s the one who created the first goal. And now, bringing a physicality to her play … She executed really well.”
Mullen and the rest of the defense continued to excel as the Terriers hit the road to play a struggling University of Vermont team on Sunday.
The Catamounts provided a very even game with ball possession split evenly between teams.
The team’s 185-minute shutout streak came to an end Sunday, however, as it allowed a goal in the final minutes of regulation to force overtime, but the improvement between three weeks ago and Sunday was quite apparent.
BU ultimately won the match by a tally of 2–1 in overtime.
The defense will need to remain on its A-game for the rest of conference play if the Terriers want a chance of receiving an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.
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