BU has resided on the periphery of its own potential since its inception as a Division I program in 2014. From losing a transformative player in the transfer portal to having prospects decommit and suffering several near misses in the playoffs and on the outside of them, the Terriers’ story is one of almosts. They were projected to finish fifth in the Patriot League this season. Instead, they started 6-0, finished with the second-most wins in program history and earned a bye in the conference championship as the No. 1 seed. (BU clinched prior to a 15-14 loss to Army last Friday.)
Junior attackman Vince D'Alto is tied for 16th in the nation at 3.07 goals per game. The Terriers lead the nation in caused turnovers per game with 11.71, more than an entire turnover ahead of the next-best team. Most of that comes from long-stick midfielder Roy Meyer, who averages 3.07 per game by himself.
It’s a more mature version of what BU has spent nearly a decade building. The Terriers hope they can finally reap the benefits of their hard work.
“The only thing we haven’t done is win a Patriot League championship,” Polley said. “We’ve had teams that were talented enough. The only bummer has been we lost a couple of semifinal games. We lost a couple of games late in the season that took us out of at-large consideration. I'm really proud of where we are.”
BU has never hosted a semifinal game. It’s uncharted territory for a senior group that has taken pride in cementing a winning legacy for the team.
“A big reason why a lot of us came here to begin with was it is a new program,” senior attackman Timmy Ley said. “It didn’t have a lot of history. We have the chance to build something almost from scratch. We’ve been here a little while now, since freshman year, and we’ve seen it pay off.”
The Terriers’ identity has been wrapped around near misses. The first time they were in the Patriot League semifinals in 2018 — after having missed out on the postseason with final-game losses to Holy Cross twice previously — they fell to conference powerhouse Army.
That was Chris Gray’s freshman season. BU had landed the eighth-ranked prospect in the country, its first top-10 recruit. It was a sign the Terriers were on the map.
Boston University has been a potential destination lacrosse school since its inception. In an era of Division I men’s lacrosse expansion — Michigan, Furman and Marquette all added programs around the same time — BU had name recognition in the northeast in a big city. Massachusetts had been largely unexplored as a top Division I market outside of Harvard, an Ivy League school that had its own appeals. UMass was further west; Merrimack and UMass Lowell weren’t yet Division I, though the Riverhawks came soon after. The Terriers could lock down the New England market.
Then after an up-and-down 2019 season that included a one-goal loss to Lehigh in the Patriot League semifinals, things became difficult. Gray transferred to North Carolina at the start of the transfer portal gaining prominence. Then BU lost top recruit Anthony DeMaio to Maryland after he decommitted.
By 2020, the Terriers were going into a tough schedule without Gray, without graduated top scorer James Burr and still without a trip to the NCAA tournament. The season got canceled when they were 3-3, coming off a one-goal win against Colgate.
With an abridged 2021 schedule, BU dealt with frustrations. It went 6-5, lost to Colgate in the conference quarterfinals and finished its last two regular season games with a combined 13 goals and two losses, including one against a Brown squad that hadn’t played all season.
Predicted to finish fifth in the conference this season, something clicked for the Terriers. Something that could bring them to a win at Loyola, where they had never won before, despite missing two starters. Something that responded to a brutal 22-15 loss to Yale, the type of defeat that would have derailed seasons when the program was younger.
Goalie Matt Garber, the successor to former top recruit Joe McSorley, was the conference’s top goalie. Meyer won defensive player of the year. Polley won head coach of the year for the second time and first since 2017.