Terriers Advance In NCAA Women's Soccer
November 8, 2000 | Women's Soccer
NCAA Soccer Championship Web Site 2000 Championship Bracket
WORCESTER, Mass. - Freshman Rebecca Beyer (Shawnee, KS) headed in a shot in the 69th minute of play and junior goalkeeper Danielle Demers (Portland, ME) earned her ninth shutout of the season as the Terrier women's soccer team defeated host Holy Cross, 1-0, in the first round of the NCAA Division 1 Women's Soccer Tournament on Wednesday (Nov. 8).
B.U., which improved its overall record to 16-6-0, will travel to Dartmouth on Sunday (November 12th) for a second-round matchup against the Big Green. Game time is scheduled for 1:00 p.m.
Beyer, who scored her second goal of the season, was in perfect position in front of the Holy Cross goal when freshman Katie Smurthwaite (West Hartford, CT) took the corner kick.
The ball headed into the crowd in front of Crusader goalkeeper Tiffany DeCoff. Beyer leaped for the ball and headed it over DeCoff's left shoulder into the goal and the only score of the game.
"We work on corner kicks a lot during practice," said Beyer, whose previous goal this season was scored in the Terriers' 3-0 win over Hartford on October 20th. "Katie gave me a great ball to head. It was a great service, and I was exactly where I needed to be when I needed to be there."
In the meantime, Demers, who improved her season record to 12-3-0 as she lowered her goals against average to 0.71, had four saves.
The biggest of the four came early in the first half when she came out of the box to make a save on Holy Cross's Lee Hummer. Demers tried to kick the ball away, but, instead, it came back to Hummer. Hummer then tried to chip the ball over Demers' head and into the B.U. goal. However, Demers leaped for the shot and made the save.
"I knew I had made a mistake when I tried to clear the shot," said Demers. "At that point, all I was thinking was that I needed to recover. I really didn't have much time to react. But, I jumped and made the save."
It proved to be the Crusaders' best scoring chance of the first half.
The Terriers. had a couple of scoring chances themselves in the opening 90 minutes of the game. The first was by senior Deidre Enos (Milton), whose shot went wide left, and the second was by junior Nicole Soules (Springfield, VA).
Statistically, in the first half, B.U. held a slight advantage in shots, 6-4, but had a big edge in corner kicks, 6-0.
Holy Cross came out attacking in the second half, and outshot the Terriers, 3-1, in the opening minutes. They finished the second half with seven shots and had at least three excellent scoring chances. Erica Backstrom took a shot that went over the Terrier crossbar. Then, Sarah Comeaux's crossing shot hit the crossbar. Finally, in the waning minutes of the game, Brandy Ault had two excellent shots. On her second attempt, the ball was loose in the six-yard area when Terrier junior defender Megan Cross (Pembroke) came sliding over to clear the ball away.
For the game, the Terriers outshot the Crusaders, 14-11, but had a huge advantage in corner kicks, 11-1.
It was one of those B.U. corner kicks that led to the game's only goal.
"This was not one of our best offensive performances this year," said Terrier head coach Nancy Feldman. "We looked very tentative, and we seemed out of sorts. We never had any rhythm with our attack. We just never got over the hump.
"It seems that we were fighting ourselves the entire game," the coach went on. "We did what we had to do to win."
Boston University 0 1 - 1 Holy Cross 0 0 - 0
Scoring First Half: No scoring.
Second Half: B.U, Rebecca Beyer (Katie Smurthwaite), 68:16
Shots: B.U., 14; Holy Cross, 11
Saves: Danielle Demers, B.U., 4; Tiffany DeCoff, Holy Cross, 5
Corner Kicks: B.U., 11; Holy Cross, 1
