With five games in the books for the Boston University field hockey team, the Terriers will now turn their attention to the Patriot League as they begin conference play.
The Terriers (2-3) will travel to Lafayette College Saturday afternoon for what BU coach Sally Star said should be an exciting matchup. She is eager to get started on her team’s second year in the conference.
“The Patriot League is stronger than ever as a conference,” Starr said. “Lafayette had a quality win over Boston College, American University had beaten Old Dominion [University], Bucknell University just turned around and beat Princeton [University] this past weekend, and these are teams that are constantly in the top 10 — some of the top programs in the country.
“We took Northwestern [University] to overtime, BC (5-1) to overtime, so I just think the whole quality of hockey in the Patriot League is really strong this year.”
Last year, the Terriers came in second in conference play, eventually falling to American (4-2) in the Patriot League Championship game by a score of 3-0.
“We have a really tough assignment to go to Lafayette (4-2) and to play a very good Lafayette team,” Starr said. “I’m looking forward to that opportunity, but we really have to work hard this week so that when we go down there, we play the best that we’re capable of playing.”
Passing game struggling
One thing that the BU team has been working on recently is the improvement of its passing game. With junior fullback Katie Bernatchez — someone who Starr regards as one of the team’s top playmakers — out with pneumonia since the Terriers faced Northwestern (4-3) on Aug. 29, the team has gone through a bit of an identity crisis in terms of its passing, Starr said.
“I looked at her today, and I said, ‘Our passing game got pneumonia as well,’ because I think when Katie was on the field, we passed really well,” she said. “Right now, we’re just trying to slot people in different spots and reestablish our passing game.”
Starr said sophomore fullback Bea Baumberger Altirriba is a player who has stepped up and is playing the way the team should in order to perform at its highest level.
“Bea has been outstanding with really implementing the type of style hockey that we want to play,” she said. “We just need to be more disciplined and structurally sound to play the passing game that we need to be able to play in order to be successful in games.”
Getting back into the groove the Terriers had with Bernatchez in the lineup is crucial to jumpstarting BU’s offense, which is something they have been grappling with this season, Starr said.
“It gets you to the open side of the field a little bit more,” she said. “It gets the defense shifting a lot more. It puts the defense under pressure. It gives you more open looks.
“It definitely translates into more quality scoring opportunities or opportunities to create penalty corners where you’re just putting so much more stress on the defense.”
Despite loss, resiliency in BC game constitutes a good sign
BU might have come back from Newton with a tough overtime loss to its biggest rival in BC, but Starr said the Terriers’ ability to stay in the game was encouraging.
“I think our strongest hockey was in the second half,” she said. “[With] our team’s resiliency of keep fighting, keep working through, I thought we got better and better as the game went on.”
The Eagles, possessing a much deeper roster, had the ability to get players on and off the field with a total of 25 players, while the Terriers – possessing six fewer players – were stretched thinner across the course of the game.
“We’re really limited in the number of substitutes we’re able to utilize this year because of injury, and so a lot of players are on the field playing 70 minutes, 65 minutes, and that’s really tough to do in a modern game of hockey,” Starr said. “That’s showing our ability to stay on the field and not lose effectiveness as the game goes on but actually gain some effectiveness.
“For us to be able to play well against a team that’s able to substitute so freely so late in the game just bodes well for what we’re capable of doing.”
Nice girl, tries hard, loves the game. Judy covers men's hockey for The Daily Free Press. When she's not writing, she's quoting "Miracle" in conversations and living in a constant in a state of wonder at everything Patrice Bergeron has ever done. Follow her on Twitter at @judylee_c
