Women's Soccer Blanks Vermont As Clinton Ties Career Mark
October 2, 2003 | Women's Soccer
Senior goalkeeper Jessica Clinton tied a school career shutout mark, while sophomores Brooke Bingham and Melissa Shulman each scored a goal as the Terrier women's soccer team blanked visiting Vermont, 2-0, on Thursday night, Oct. 2nd.
After turning aside just one shot in the first half, Clinton added four more saves in the second half en route to posting her fourth shutout of the season and 20th of her career. She thus tied Meghan Lynch, who had 20 shutouts from 1996-99.
The win kept the Terriers undefeated in their last six matches, as they are 5-0-1 during this stretch. Overall, B.U. improved to 6-3-2 and 2-0-0 in the America East. In the meantime, Vermont slipped to 4-3-2 overall and 0-1-0 in the conference.
During this six-game stretch, Clinton has played outstanding in the Terrier goal as she has an 0.64 goals against average and an .818 save percentage to go along with the 5-0-1 record. Three of these five victories have come via shutouts-5-0 over UMass on Sept. 17, 2-0 over UMBC on Sept. 27, and 2-0 over Vermont on Thursday night. With these statistics, Clinton, who has played every minute of the Terriers' 11 games this year, has a 6-3-2 record along with 1.11 goals against average and a .776 save percentage.
"Jess has had a great career here, and there is still more to come," Terrier head coach Nancy Feldman said after the win. "From the day she got here, she has played with poise and confidence. She has always been strong in the air, and she has worked hard to improve on the areas where she needed to work. She has gotten better coming out of the net on a break.
"She has done the little things that make her job look easier," said Feldman. "The way she has played, our players have a lot of confidence with her in goal."
Clinton and the Terriers got the only goal they would need just 4:43 into the match when Bingham scored her third goal of the season on a penalty kick. The play was set up when senior Rebecca Beyer was tackled in the box.
"Rebo (Beyer) earned that penalty kick by playing tough in the box," said Feldman.
The Terriers dominated play in the first half, outshooting the Catamounts, 8-2, and holding the edge in corner kicks, 5-1.
The play in the second half was more even with B.U. outshooting Vermont, 10-7, while both team had two corner kicks.
The only goal came at 72:29 when Shulman notched her team-leading fifth of the season on a header. Senior Emily Dionne set up the play with an indirect kick that Shulman headed past Vermont goalkeeper Katie Duffy.
"I thought we were a bit sluggish tonight," said Feldman. "Certainly, one of the reasons has been our tough schedule over the last week."
In the last eight days, the Terriers have played four games-Sept. 20th at Rhode Island, last Saturday at home against UMBC, Tuesday afternoon vs. Harvard, and tonight vs. a Vermont team.
"There certainly was the fatigue factor tonight," said Feldman. "We were slow off the mark. We had the energy to win the first ball, but, if you look at the statistics, you will see that Vermont won maybe 60 percent of the second balls.
"We did get our chances tonight," concluded Feldman. "We didn't play super well, but we got the win over a much-improved Vermont team.
"One player who did have a phenomenal game tonight was Lesley Garvey," the coach said of the senior tri-captain. "She did not see much action early in the season because of nagging injuries. But, the way she played tonight, she is back. She is the Lesley Garvey of old. No one could get by her, and this allows us to do certain things we want to do. There is no question with her playing 90 minutes like she did tonight, it gives us depth in the midfield and depth in the back."
