By: Dave Souza<\/p>\n
Boston University Men\u2019s Soccer took on Army West Point on senior night at Nickerson Field with the Terriers needing a win to remain in the hunt for a spot in the Patriot League tournament. However, before Saturday\u2019s contest, the Terriers were more focused on something else than their crucial penultimate matchup with the Black Knights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to motivate [the seniors] and let them know that this might be their last time playing in a competitive game,\u201d said junior Anthony Viteri. \u201cAround the locker room we posted pictures of them when they were young \u2013 when they were like five-years old. . . .sometimes you get away from the love of the game and we tried to just get that passion they had when they were little kids and had no cares in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
With fresh motivation to win and enjoy the game, the Terriers (7-6-2, 3-3-2 PL) turned in arguably their best performance of the season, besting the Black Knights (8-6-2, 4-3-1 PL) 1-0 and keeping their postseason hopes alive.<\/p>\n
The deciding goal came in the opening moments of the second half as Viteri notched his seventh of the season in the 47th<\/sup> minute. The play began when David Amirani spun around an Army midfielder before sending a perfectly placed through ball in between three West Point defenders directly to the feet of Viteri. The sure-footed junior received the pass before quickly sliding a shot past a diving Justin Stoll to give BU the 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n \u201cThe defensive midfielder wasn\u2019t marking me up so I was isolated one-on-one with the center back and David just played an unbelievable ball,\u201d said Viteri. \u201cIt was mainly the ball, it wasn\u2019t really the finish.\u201d<\/p>\n The lone goal proved to be enough for the Terriers as goalkeeper Matt Gilbert recorded his fourth shutout in his last five contests. In Saturday\u2019s game, the senior keeper made four saves, including a crucial one in the game\u2019s dying minutes.<\/p>\n With a little under three minutes to go, Army made a final push to net the equalizer. Senior forward Nick Williams corralled the ball inside the BU box and had an open shot on goal before Gilbert sprawled out to make the save, punching away the strike with a flail of his left arm.<\/p>\n \u201c[Gilbert] is playing the way we were hoping he was going to play all year,\u201d said head coach Neil Roberts. \u201cI\u2019m happy for him that he\u2019s showing what a really good goalkeeper he is.\u201d<\/p>\n The Terrier defense kept the Black Knights\u2019 top two scorers at bay for the entirety of the game. Williams and freshman phenom Rex Epps have combined for 14 goals on the season, but could only manage two shots on goal on Saturday. Coach Roberts credits BU\u2019s late stretch of success to the Terriers\u2019 stingy defense \u2013 which has allowed one goal in the last five contests.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were just prepared for them, we know they\u2019re fast,\u201d said Roberts of Williams and Epps. \u201cCollectively we did well. It\u2019s not really defending against the strikers, it\u2019s defending against the ball played into them, which our guys did a great job of.\u201d<\/p>\n After their defense faltered early in the season, the Terriers have vaulted themselves into fifth place in the Patriot League because of a strong back line that has anchored the Terriers to a 3-1-1 conference record since October 8.<\/p>\n Viteri came out of the contest with a leg cramp in the 61st<\/sup> minute, but returned in the 73rd<\/sup> minute and finished the game. Senior Felix De Bona also came out due to injury with about 11 minutes remaining after being on the receiving end of a rough kick in the offensive zone. While De Bona was up and walking on the sideline by game\u2019s end, he did not return to the contest.<\/p>\n With six days between their last two games, the Terriers have the opportunity to nurse their bumps and bruises as they gear up to play last-place Navy on Friday, November 4. The top six teams qualify for the Patriot League playoffs, giving the Terriers a chance to sew up a postseason birth with a win over the Midshipmen. And while Roberts expressed satisfaction with the win on Saturday, he declared that his squad would not be content without earning another win..<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m happy that they\u2019re starting to show what they\u2019re capable of doing,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cThis team has been working real hard, it\u2019s just they weren\u2019t getting rewarded for it. . . .but they hung in their and they kept fighting and it\u2019s hopefully starting to turn. But, we aren\u2019t there yet. We\u2019re almost there, we\u2019re closer than we were yesterday, but we\u2019ve still got one more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Dave Souza Boston University Men\u2019s Soccer took on Army West Point on senior night at Nickerson Field with the Terriers needing a win to remain in the hunt for a spot in the Patriot League tournament. However, before Saturday\u2019s contest, the Terriers were more focused on something else than their crucial penultimate matchup with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17192,"featured_media":420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1026,1030],"tags":[1053],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22332,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7253\/revisions\/22332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}