No. 10 Brown tasted its first loss of the year after BU scored with 27 minutes left in the second half and the Bears could not come up with a response.
"We came out slow in the second half," said midfielder Chris Roland '10. "We let them back in the game. When they scored, we got frantic."
In the first half, each team minimized the other's scoring chances with stiff defense. Rhett Bernstein '08 and the other defensemen cleared away a number of long balls sent in by the Terriers, and goalkeeper Jarrett Leech '09 squelched each opportunity the opponents generated.
A long layoff might have contributed to the Bears' failure to create chances in the first half. After playing the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Irvine, on the West Coast two weeks ago, the team had eight days off - its longest hiatus of the season.
While Roland said the team should not attribute the loss to the time off, he admitted that coming "off nine days of rest, sometimes the intensity isn't the same."
Both teams opened up their offenses in the second session. Dylan Sheehan '09, Brown's points leader, received a cross from Laurent Manuel '08 and hit a low shot towards the corner but BU's Hrafn Davidsson made a diving save to keep Brown off the board. Manuel, playing in his first game of the year due to personal reasons, continued to challenge the Terrier defense with creative runs up the right flank.
"It was unbelievable to be back ... (playing) with the boys," Manuel said. "I felt good because I have been training with the boys the whole time."
Midway through the second half, BU scored all the offense it needed to take home the win. On a pass from a midfielder, Bernstein gambled and tried to intercept the pass but it traveled just beyond his reach and straight to freshman forward Aaron O'Neal. Brown defenders David Walls '11 and Matt Britner '08 stepped in, but O'Neal turned and fired from the top of the 18-yard box. After the ball deflcted slightly off Britner, Leech made a diving effort and just got his fingers on the ball but the shot had too much pace and powered into the top corner of the net. In the latter stages of the game the Bears were beaten to a majority of balls, but no one wanted to attribute that fact to fatigue.
"I thought we were the fitter team," Roland said. "When you go down a goal it takes a lot out of you. You press up and have to make a lot of long runs."
The Bears will look to start a new winning streak when they host Princeton in their Ivy League opener at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
- with additional reporting by Jason Harris
