Terriers Blanked By Harvard In Non-Conference Finale
October 15, 2002 | Women's Soccer
The Terrier women's soccer team closed out the non-conference part of its schedule on Tuesday night (October 15th) with a 2-0 loss to Harvard at Nickerson Field. The team's five remaining games are all against America East rivals.
Picked to win their third straight league title in the pre-season poll of the coaches, the Terriers are currently in a three-way tie with Albany and Vermont for fifth place in the standings. B.U., which is 1-2-0 in the league, needs to jump at least one spot if it hopes to make the post-season playoffs, as just the top four teams advance.
The loss to Harvard dropped the Terriers' overall record to 4-9-1, and, with just the five games left of the schedule, they need to sweep all five to avoid a losing season.
Despite the loss, and being shut out for the fourth straight game, Terrier head coach Nancy Feldman likes the way her team has been playing.
"I like the way we played the whole game tonight," said the coach. "Right now, we are playing so much better than we did at the beginning of the season. We are a much different team now, and we are playing so much more consistently.
"This was a good team we played tonight," the coach went on. "We are much closer to them now than ever before. We played with a lot more confidence tonight especially in the second half."
The Terriers entered the second half trailing by a 1-0 margin. Harvard, which outshot the Terriers by an 8-4 margin and had four corner kicks to one in the first half, got on the scoreboard in the 43rd minute of action. Junior Katie Westfall collected the ball in the upper right hand corner of the box and fired her shot that beat Terrier goalkeeper Jessica Clinton (Valley Stream, NY) to the far side, and Harvard had a lead it would never relinquish.
It was a different story in the second half as the Terriers had four good scoring chances, but could not collect a goal. Harvard's best save of the half was made by the Crimson crossbar, which stopped a bid by Terrier senior Suzanne Hudak (Harleysville, PA). Her shot from in close rang off the bar. Terrier senior Allison Merkle (Baltimore, MD) was there for the rebound but the ball went past her. Merkle also had an excellent chance on a direct kick but Harvard goalkeeper Maja Agustsdottir redirected it over the cross bar. Finally, Terrier junior Katie Smurthwaite (West Hartford, CT) came in on a fast break, but as she was headed into the box, Harvard's Caitlin Fisher came back to redirect the ball away.
Fisher then had a hand on the Crimson's insurance goal that Joey Yenne scored with just 20 seconds to play in regulation. Fisher's throw-in went to Yenne who made a move around a Terrier defender. Her low shot to the Terrier goal beat Clinton.
With the Harvard game out of the way, Coach Feldman then turned her attention to the conference schedule which begins this Sunday at Binghamton.
"I told the team that every one of our last five games is like a playoff game," she said. "We need to go after each game with a sense of urgency."
| Team | FirstHalf | Second Half | Total |
| Harvard (6-4-1) | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Boston University (4-9-1) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Scoring |
| H--Katie Westfall (Joey Yenne, Beth Toten), 42:14 |
| H--Yenne (Caitlin Fisher), 89:40 |
| Statistics | | |
| Saves | Jessica Clinton, B.U., 7 | Katie Shields (H), 2; Maja Agustsdottir (H), 3 |
| Corner Kicks | B.U., 8 | Harvard, 6 |
| Shots | B.U., 12 | Harvard, 17 |
