D'Angelo Leads Terriers to America East Regular Season Title
November 2, 2001 | Men's Soccer
Junior Tony D'Angelo's (Tewksbury, MA) shot, deflected by a Towson defender and past Tiger goalkeeper Andy Hicks, broke a scoreless tie at 74:18 to give the Terrier men's soccer team a 1-0 win over Towson to clinch the America East regular season title.
The Terriers (13-4-1, 9-1-1) finished their season on a nine-game unbeaten streak, and, with the win, was awarded the first-seed and home-field advantage throughout the America East tournament. The Tigers (12-4-1, 8-1-2), who were tied with the Terriers' for first place in the league going into the game, will be the number-two seed. Both teams earned first-round byes and will host semifinal games next Saturday (November 11th).
Following a scoreless first half in which the Terriers mustered only two shots, B.U. had a number of scoring opportunities and D'Angelo was able to beat two defenders and send a shot to the lower left corner of the cage that deflected off a Tiger defender and past Hicks. D'Angelo, who has started in every game during his three-year career at B.U., scored what was his first goal of the season and the second of his career.
"You could almost sense it was coming," said Terrier coach Neil Roberts. "We had a lot of pressure on Towson, and Tony drove the ball across and it deflected in."
B.U. rookie goalkeeper Zak Thompson (Silver Spring, MD) made five saves for the Terriers' for his third-consecutive shutout win. Thompson's best save came with 11 minutes to go in the first half. Tiger forward Todd Lauber beat a number of Terrier defenders and Thompson came out and made a big save to deny Lauber.
"Zak's been real steady and composed," said Roberts. "He's got great hands, always holding onto the ball off shots, and his distribution has improved."
The Terrier defense kept Towson's biggest scoring threat Alfonso DeMares shotless in the match. DeMares, the 2000 America East Player of the Year, and the rest of the Tigers had 13 shots, while the Terriers had eight.
"Our defense has been playing real well in these last couple of games," said Roberts. "[Michael] Feely (Lemmingspa, England), Karl [Ruegemer] (Minnetonka, MN), Erik [Evjen] (Askim, Norway), and EA [Carr] (Independence, OH) all did a super job today on their big three scorers."
The Terriers now have a week to rest before they host the winner of Wednesday's first-round match between Northeastern and Hofstra. The Terriers have not won an America East tournament since 1997, the last of five straight conference titles between 1993 and 1997.
"The most important thing this season was to be the number one or two seed," said Roberts. "Hosting the tournament is just gravy. I'm really happy for this group of guys. They're young and seen a lot of injuries, and they deserve this."
