Men’s Soccer: Terriers fall to Northeastern after two late goals

By Cameron Meyer

Boston University men’s soccer (4-4-6) (2-1-3 PL) traveled a mile south on Tuesday to take on Northeastern (4-8-3) in their final non-conference game of the season. Thanks to two late set-piece goals, the Terriers fell to their crosstown rival 2-1. 

The loss for BU comes off the back of consecutive Patriot League wins that saw the Terriers shut out Bucknell and Loyola Maryland. 

“We’ve got to take this, this is on us,” BU Head Coach Kevin Nylen said. “[We’ve] got to be more mature about how we’re going to close out a game and we did it on the weekend and we didn’t do it today.”

Because of short rest and more pivotal conference games to be played on the schedule, Nylen heavily rotated his starting eleven from Saturday — changing eight of eleven starters.

“We’ve got three games left,” Nylen said. “We made eight changes to the lineup because we have depth. That’s a testament to our guys.”

The game at Parsons Field started frenetically with both teams pressing high up the field and challenging the ball aggressively. Although the Terriers dominated possession in the first half, the Huskies looked more deadly going forward — finding some good chances in transition.

Of the Huskies five shots in the first half, the most advantageous of them came in the 32nd minute. After mistakes by defenders Neal Carlson and Griffin Roach and goalkeeper Andrew Wike, who came out of his box too late, Northeastern freshman Fraser Brown saved the Terriers by shooting wide of an open goal.

Thanks to the Huskies’ shooting errors, the game went into the break goalless, but the Terriers found their attacking groove as soon the second half started.

In the 47th minute, midfielder Quinn Matulis received the ball on the top of the box and slipped defender Ryan Lee through on goal with a deft pass. From there, Lee finished the move for his second goal of the season. In the process, Matulis also got his fourth assist of the year, which leads the team.

“Quinn’s finding himself in good form,” Nylen said. “In the last stretch he’s found good pockets [and] gotten guys on the dribble. Tonight, another good assist to continue to push him, which helps us.”

The Terriers continued to pile on the pressure Northeastern goalkeeper Colby Hegarty. They had two great chances to double their lead around the 50-minute mark, the best of which came from Lee, whose shot smacked the underside of the crossbar.

The game would’ve been “probably over” if Lee had finished his chance, according to Nylen.

Less than ten minutes later, Northeastern found an equalizer heavily against the run of play off of a long-throw in. Midfielder Morris Matthews looped the ball into the mixer, which was eventually turned in by forward Harry Sankey after some confusion in the box. 

The goal shifted the game’s momentum in the Huskies’ favor and added to the frantic nature of the run of play. 26 total fouls were called throughout the game along with six yellow cards, five of which coming after Sankey’s goal. 

The Huskies thrived in the chaos, knocking on the Terriers’ door throughout the remainder of the game. Eventually, that door burst open in the 86th minute when Brown got on the end of a Federico Tellez corner. He made sure not to miss this time as he secured the win for Northeastern.

The Terriers will next take on American on Sunday at Nickerson Field at 1 p.m.