Boston College lacrosse attack Sam Apuzzo won the opening draw against Harvard, and just 26 seconds later, Kenzie Kent set up teammate Dempsey Arsenault for a game-opening goal. Eight minutes and four different goal scorers later, the Eagles had staked themselves to a 6-0 lead, one they would never come close to relinquishing.
For the No. 1 team in the nation, the goals sure do come easy.
Apuzzo had four goals and two assists, piling up nine draw controls—more than the Crimson’s entire team total of four—and Kent added a goal and six assists as BC routed Harvard, 17-6, on Saturday afternoon in Newton.
Arsenault and Taylor Walker both netted hat tricks for the Eagles (4-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast). The clocked rolled throughout the second half, and the outcome was never in doubt. BC’s defensive effort was a step up from its game prior, where it allowed 14 goals to Massachusetts, as it caused seven turnovers and committed just 12 fouls.
Caroline Garrity accounted for half of the Crimson’s (1-1) scoring with three goals, including one with 34 seconds left, but a run of 20-plus games without a victory against a ranked opponent continued. Harvard outshot BC, 10-8, in the final 30 minutes, but entered the break trailing by 11 and gave up two goals in the first 10 minutes.
The Eagles needed just eight minutes to reach the six-goal mark, and Kent had her hand in three of them. After setting up Arsenault, the redshirt senior connected with Cara Urbank and freshman Maggie Casey. The latter was the second goal in 16 seconds for Casey, the first multi-point effort of the Garden City, N.Y. native’s collegiate career.
Sheila Rietano and Apuzzo each added goals earlier in the stretch. Garrity would snap the skid after four scoreless minutes, tallying her first with 19 minutes left in the half, and the Crimson briefly cut the deficit to four when teammate Hannah Keating scored while on the man advantage. In a familiar fashion, though, Apuzzo won the resulting draw control and Rietano scored her second of the day—and ninth on the year after logging just seven goals all of 2018.
Apuzzo got on the board four minutes later, recovering after missing a free-position shot prior by scoring a nifty behind-the-back goal that caught Harvard netminder Grace Rotondo off-guard. The Crimson would answer in the form of a Madison Conklin goal, but the next six goals—over a nine-minute stretch—all came from BC in dominant fashion. The Eagles outshot Harvard, 24-12, in the first half, taking advantage of a monumental edge in draw controls with 15 to their visitors’ three.
The 6-0 run remarkably featured five separate goal scorers. Walker, Kent, Apuzzo, Arsenault, Jenn Medjid, and Walker again ended the half in dominant fashion. Walker had 23 goals in 18 games last season, but is on pace to clear that mark with ease in 2019. The senior has posted multi-goal efforts in three of her four games thus far, completing a hat trick at the outset of the second half to extend the lead to 12.
Head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein held her team back in the second half, with both teams registering three goals apiece. Harvard got two from Garrity and another from Katie Muldoon, with the duo successively scoring in the final four minutes to close the final margin to 11 goals. BC’s came from Walker, Apuzzo, and Arsenault. Apuzzo’s fourth goal merely reflected the continuation of an increase in scoring average. As a sophomore, she totaled 80 goals in 24 games, then bumped that up to 88 in 24 games in her junior year Tewaaraton Award-winning season. Through four games, Apuzzo has 18 goals and eight assists, a remarkable pace for the senior captain.
Kent, meanwhile, had six assists, the most by a BC player in a single game since Arsenault did so in the fourth game of 2018 against Navy. Two set up Apuzzo, but the other four went to different players, a clear marker of the depth that Walker-Weinstein is working with on the offensive side.
Through four games, the Eagles have had three or more players record hat tricks in three of the games. They’ve hit 17 goals in three of those and also showed in a two-goal win against Syracuse that they can grind out lower-scoring defensive battles. BC’s impressive depth was on full display against the Crimson, and it’s surely not going to be the last game this season that is all but decided after the first 30 minutes of play.
Featured Image by Jonathan Ye / Heights Editor
