Nov. 10, 2009

Box Score

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The No. 20 Boston University field hockey team had its season come to a heartbreaking end on Tuesday, as the Terriers dropped a 3-2 overtime contest to No. 14 Stanford in an NCAA Play-In Game at Jack Barry Field. BU tied the contest with 21.7 seconds left in regulation and had great scoring chances early in overtime before the Cardinal tallied the game-winner at the 77:32 mark.

BU ends its season with a record of 10-12, while Stanford improves to 17-4 and advances to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2007.

The Terriers got on the board first in the ninth minute on a goal by freshman Nicole van Oosterom and took the 1-0 lead into halftime, but the visitors scored two second-half goals to take a 2-1 lead with just over 15 minutes left in regulation.

With junior goalkeeper Amanda Smith pulled in favor of an extra field player, the Terriers drew a corner in the 70th minute and used it to bury the equalizer, as freshman Jacinda McLeod blasted a shot off Stanford netminder Alessandra Moss and into the goal with 21.7 seconds left on the clock.

The goal sent the game into overtime, where the Terriers broke up an early Stanford corner and then proceeded to keep the ball either at midfield or in the Cardinal zone for the next five minutes while setting up odd-player rushes and several scoring opportunities.

Moss made saves on shots by van Oosterom and junior Allie Dolce before the Terriers earned two corners that produced three shots in the 77th minute. The last effort came from the stick of Dolce, whose redirect at 76:56 hit the left post square on.

The Cardinal was finally able to clear the ball and get it down to other end, where junior Xanthe Travlos dribbled into the circle before sending the ball up to sophomore Stephanie Byrne, who punched in the game-winner from above the right post 7:32 into the extra session.

The first half of the contest proved that the teams were evenly matched, as back-and-forth play dominated the stanza. BU, however, capitalized on an early chance when Dolce passed off in the circle to van Oosterom, who gathered the ball to the left side of the cage and drilled a reverse-stick drive to the boards at 8:23 from five yards out.

Stanford came close to tying the game on its first shot on goal, which came from Byrne in the 20th minute, and BU nearly doubled its lead minutes later when a redirect from sophomore Kali Cardoza at the left post sailed just wide of the cage.

Neither team threatened to score in the opening minutes of the second half, but Stanford began to take control by recording eight of their 13 shots for the game in a 16-minute span that produced the game-tying and go-ahead goals.

Stanford knotted the game on its first shot after the break when Travlos knocked in a pass from junior Camille Gandhi at 45:11 for her team-leading 17th goal of the season.

The visitors took their first lead of the game on one of their six second-half corners, as Gandhi tallied a goal of her own when she knocked home a shot from eight yards out off a pass from senior Rachel Mozenter at 54:55. The goal came with the Terriers down a player, as senior Haley Robinson was seconds away from having her seven-minute yellow-card penalty expire as Gandhi scored.

BU was only able to record one shot in the first 28 minutes of the latter half and Stanford threatened to extend its lead soon after its second tally with four more corners and three more shots on goal. The Terriers withstood the pressure, however, and then pulled Smith with 8:27 left in regulation.

Stanford had the ball just inside the BU zone in the 63rd minute and called a timeout to adjust to the Terriers' 11-player attack. The Cardinal's field position forced BU to put Smith back in after the timeout, but the Terriers quickly took over possession and Smith came back to the sidelines at 63:27.

BU's offensive pressure picked up in the closing minutes and the team was rewarded with a corner just as regulation entered its final minute. On the corner, Dolce inserted to Robinson at the top of the circle, where she left the ball for McLeod, who provided the game-tying heroics with her ninth goal of the season.