Terrier men's soccer goalkeeper Matt Smith (Lanchester, England) suffered a contusion of his kidney in last Saturday's (September 29th) 1-0 loss to Boston College, and he will be lost for the season, according to Terrier head coach Neil Roberts.

"Smitty will be fine," said the coach, "but the recovery will take time. Right now, he is not allowed to do anything for six weeks." Smith suffered the injury early in the second half of the Eagles' game.

"When a goalkeeper is stretching out and lunging to make a save as Smitty was, he cannot protect himself," said Roberts.

Smith laid on the ground for several minutes after the injury. However, he was eventually able to resume his position and somehow finish the game. He wound up with eight saves for the game, six of which came in the second half.

He was charged with the loss to bring his season record to 4-3-0 with a 1.27 goals against average and a .791 save percentage. Smith did not play in Tuesday night's (October 2nd) game against Northeastern University. Freshman Zak Thompson (Silver Spring, MD) played the entire game and had nine saves en route to a 2-0 win over the Huskies.

Thompson is expected to be the Terriers' starter the rest of the season. Their next action will be on Friday (October 5th) when B.U. travels to Hofstra for a 3:30 p.m. game.

"I feel very badly for Smitty," said Roberts. "He had trained very hard during the off-season and came back in great shape, and had taken the role of being one of the leaders on the team.

"I feel that he has the talent to be one of the best keepers in the country, and, unfortunately, for the past two years, he hasn't had a chance to show how good he is," said Roberts.

Last year, even before the pre-season began, Smith suffered a broken right thumb that sidelined him for the first 10 games of the season. He came back to play the final seven games and compiled a 4-3-0 record with a 1.15 goals against average and a .771 save percentage.

Two years ago, as a freshman, he was healthy the entire season and posted an 8-5-5 mark with a 0.98 goals against average and a .722 save percentage.