April 21, 2011
We asked Liz Robertshaw, head coach of the Boston University lacrosse team, to discuss her most memorable game with the program. She told us the story of a heart-stopping last-second goal that remains immortalized in a photograph on the wall of T. Anthony’s Restaurant near West Campus.
In 2006, we were having a really successful year. We had a class of eight seniors, including Mary Beth Miller (whose all-time program record for assists was recently broken by current senior Erica Baumgartner).
We were playing Georgetown at home and had never beaten Georgetown, ever. Extremely big game — everyone was fired up. It was a battle back and forth between the two teams. One would go up by one, and the other would tie it up. I think that there were probably a good six or seven lead changes throughout that game, very tense the entire time.
As the attacking coach (at that time), it was my job to try to pinpoint the weaknesses in the defense. I had been telling Mary Miller that the girl that’s playing her in the crease was exploitable. “I think you can take her, and I want you to take her.” It was hard because you’re telling a person who liked to assist and to feed to actually take a challenge. It was outside her comfort zone, but we worked on it all week. We just worked on that one little play of taking it to the cage and taking a shot.
But in the game, she kept hesitating and not doing it. Georgetown had the lead with about five minutes to go. Everyone was a little deflated. But then Jenny Hauser tied it up with less than four minutes left on an unassisted goal.
Our head coach, Liza Kelly (now head coach at Denver), was great. She took a timeout and looked at me and said, “Okay, what are we doing?” I said, “Okay! This is the play: We’re going to get the ball down to X (position behind the opposing net); Mary, you’re going to fake the feed, take the challenge, and go.” So we had our game plan.
Well, the draw went up, and Georgetown got it. They went the other way, and we were in full pressure — had to get this ball because it was tied, and we wanted to go up. We got it, went down, and Mary got into the play and started doing it but pulled up because they were in a double team. She got nervous, and I was saying, “You’re a senior: Don’t get nervous.” She literally looked over, and I was yelling, “Goooooooo!” The clock was ticking down. Eight seconds: She wasn't going. Six seconds — wasn't going. Five seconds, I’m like, “You’ve got to go now!!!” So she made the move with one second on the clock and shot it in right as the horn goes.
It was our first time ever beating Georgetown. Knowing it was a rival school for me when I was at George Mason and for the first time ever having the program rise to the occasion and score at the last second — and score with the last-second heroics of a player I coached on a daily basis — was awesome for me.
I guess what also made it really memorable for me was that the head coach had enough trust in me to say, “Okay, what’s the play? What are we doing?” and that this player was confident enough to make it happen.
When you start being a coach, it’s hard to let go. You still want to be playing. You want to make the difference. And that was one of the games that made me say, “It’s awesome to be a coach.” It was one of the coolest goals I’ve ever seen and one of the most memorable games because of how badly they wanted to win.
Afterward, I said to Mary Beth,“I told you you had it!” She’s a very sarcastic person. She says, “I know. I was just waiting until I needed to do it.”
I said, “Really? Are you serious right now? We’ve been asking you all game, and you’re saying, ‘Ah, I’m just going to wait until the last second’?” Unbelievable.
