The last time the Bearcats made it to the America East finals, they won it all, and they plan on doing it again this year.
This Sunday, the second-seeded Binghamton University women’s soccer team will face off against No. 1 seed Boston University Terriers for the America East championship title. The Bearcats have not reached the final game since 2004, when they won the championship, and head coach Sarah McClellan is looking for the same result this year. The Bearcats are 1-8 against Boston all-time, including a 3-0 loss earlier this season.
“Boston has eight All-Conference players, so they have a load of good players all over the field,” McClellan said. “It’s not about just one or two players with them. They have a very well-coached and organized team. But we think we match up well with them with our athleticism and our possession style of play.”
The Binghamton team that played Boston in their first conference match of the season is a far cry from the team that will be facing the Terriers this weekend. Since being shut out in that match, the Bearcats have recorded seven wins, including five shutouts of their own. “We’re light years away from where we were when we played Boston last time,” McClellan said before the AE tournament.
This team has the accolades to prove it. Junior defender Stefani Knopick won Performer of the Week, courtesy of Collegesoccer360.com. In addition, senior goalkeeper Jen McEachron was chosen to receive Academic All-District and America East All-Academic honors for her stellar performance and grade point average.
Now that both the newcomers and the veterans have had a chance to see the Terriers on the field, McClellan is confident that the team as a whole can work together.
“Our young players are doing a good job but the reason is, our older players are teaching them,” McClellan said. “The team has a good understanding of where to play the ball and as we’ve become more comfortable, we’ve started to get more chances and get more creative in front of the goal … The players are feeling more confident in stepping up and taking that responsibility of taking chances and scoring.”
Though this match will determine the Bearcats’ fate, their mindset is still the same as if it were any other game. McClellan stresses to her players that they approach each match as if it were as important as this one, so that when a moment as crucial as this comes it will be second-nature to the squad.
“[We] approach it almost just like any other game,” McClellan said. “It’s a game and we have to go through the same process in order to win the game as we did every other game that we won this year. And it’s that process that takes you to the result of winning. So we approach it that way with a little bit of extra motivation.”
The Bearcats are coming off a win that came down to the wire against Maine last Sunday, as Binghamton advanced to the finals in a shootout to set up the title matchup against the Terriers.
“Well, we did well in conference and we won a lot of games,” McClellan said. “We were able to deal with the Striker of the Year from Maine [in senior Laura Martel], and we’re confident about going into this game [against Boston].”
The championship game is scheduled for this coming Sunday at 1 p.m. in Boston.