If you drew a map with all eight teams playing in this weekend’s NCAA quarterfinals, USC and Boston College would be the two schools the farthest apart. Boston College’s campus is about 100 miles farther from USC than Stony Brook’s campus.
But as an on-field matchup, the two teams couldn’t be much closer.
They have nearly identical high-powered offenses, with BC averaging 15.43 goals per game, barely ahead of USC’s 15.29. And as of Wednesday, those offenses have matching first-team IWLCA All-Americans — Michaela Michael, who leads USC with 77 goals and 143 draws controls, and the Eagles’ Sam Apuzzo, who has 72 goals and 57 draws. Both teams also had defenders receive All-American honors: BC’s Elizabeth Miller was named to the second team, USC’s Lydia Sutton the third team.
Both teams advanced to their quarterfinal showdown with upset wins on the road, avenging losses from earlier in the season. Boston College avenged a lopsided conference loss to sixth-seeded Syracuse by humbling the Orange 21-10 in Syracuse. USC used a late four-goal surge to pay back No. 3 Florida in Jacksonville, 15-12, reversing a February loss.
Both team’s leaders said they came into those games wanting to make a statement.
“We definitely didn’t give [Syracuse] the game we wanted to the first time,” Apuzzo said. “That wasn’t the team we are now. We know we’ve hit our stride now.”
“I think we were confident the entire game [against Florida],” Michael said. “I feel like we were the only ones who believed in ourselves going into that game and thought we could win.”
Michael leads USC with 97 points, while fellow attackers Cynthia Del Core and Kylie Drexel both have over 60. All three are seniors and each remembers the overtime quarterfinal loss to Syracuse that ended their season a year ago.
“We know this is our last chance to go to the final four and we feel like we’ve been building up to this our whole four years,” Michael said.
Behind Apuzzo at Boston College, Kate Weeks has scored 69 goals, but the Eagle offense truly came alive in late March when Kenzie Kent returned to the roster from the Eagles’ hockey team. In just nine games, the two-sport star has recorded 53 points.
“We’re fortunate enough to have seven incredible attackers that can go to goal and score,” Apuzzo said.
The Eagles scored 21 in both of their NCAA games last weekend and haven’t scored less than 14 since early April. But in USC, they’ll meet a defense ranked No. 2 in the nation and led by Team USA goalie Gussie Johns.
Boston College coach Acacia Walker said Johns will offer her high-scoring team a serious challenge.
“We’ve been staring at hours and hours of Gussie Johns and she’s ridiculous. She’s ridiculous,” Acacia said. “I’ve been telling my team this week, you have to be excellent or you are going to get eaten alive by someone like Gussie.”
According to Apuzzo, the key to facing an elite goalie like Johns is to realize that it is the shot, and not the shooter, that matters the most.
“Maybe it takes 80 seconds off the 90-second shot clock but we want to have the best possible shot,” Apuzzo said. “Most of the time with a goalie like that, it’s not like if you shoot the same spot it’s always going to go in. A goalie like that can save almost anything. But it’s more in the moment reading her, like maybe fake high, and see where she’s moving.”
“BC is a fantastic team,” Johns said. “They’ve done a really good job against zones and they have great fire power from Sam to Kenzie Kent. We’ve played the same zone defense all year and against the zone, one thing you can do is move the ball quickly and they are a really good ball movement offense. So much of it is me kind of seeing myself as a defender and getting our defense to work to disturb their timing, shift together and work together to put their attack in more of a pressure situation.”
“We have some really great shooters on this team,” Apuzzo said. “If we play for our shots and do what we need to, it’s going to be back and forth.”