Champion embrace

With three minutes remaining in Friday afternoon's America East Tournament semifinal between the No. 8 Boston University lacrosse team and the University at Albany, Mother Nature honored the Terriers' dominance of the America East Conference.

With five banners hanging over the midfield sideboards of Nickerson Field, displaying each of the four contenders for the America East Championship, a steady off-field breeze flipped the Albany, University of New Hampshire and University of Vermont satins behind the tin wall, leaving the scarlet and white of BU alone to wave next to the title pennant.

Since 2000, BU has not missed the America East title game. And for the fourth consecutive year, the conference title landed them an NCAA Tournament bid.

What makes this year's run all the more remarkable is the fact that the Terriers have pushed themselves into the national bracket at the expense of the University of New Hampshire in five of their seven conference titles.

Dwarfing the lop-sided Boston College rivalry, one that has provided little in the way of a challenge for the Terriers over the past five years, BU-UNH has become a staple of America East.

With a record of 4-2 against the Wildcats in AE title games entering yesterday afternoon, the Terriers locked up their fifth win in the series by putting nine shots past UNH goalkeeper Ashley Milley.

At 7-2 in championship matchups this century, each of the Terriers' titles had come on the heels of double-digit scoring efforts - except this one.

This weekend's title bout marked the second time in program history the Terriers have been taken into extra frames in the postseason. The last playoff matchup came against then-conference foe Hofstra University on May 5, 2001, and the Terriers drew their extra-frame record even yesterday on the shoulders of junior midfielder and conference Player of the Year, Sarah Dalton, and sophomore midfielder McKinley Curro.

The Terriers shed their "offensive firepower" facade for one resembling tenacious defense, employing a form-fitting approach bolstered by the one-on-one dominance of senior co-captain Molly Collins and Tournament Most Outstanding Player, Kelly Munroe.

But in a season that saw BU coast to the final horn on the coat-tails of a double-digit lead seven times, the Terriers proved they can perform in the most unfamiliar of situations.