March 19, 2008

BOSTON - The Boston University women's soccer team and head coach Nancy Feldman have announced their 2008 schedule, highlighted by competition against three 2007 NCAA tournament teams and featuring Northeast rivals Boston College and UConn, which finished in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) top 25.

"It is an exciting and challenging schedule," stated Feldman. "We are thrilled to play some of the best competition within our region as well as get a taste of both out-of-region ACC, Big Ten and SEC opposition with our games against Boston College, South Carolina, Minnesota and Wisconsin."

BU will open the season on Aug. 23 at Nickerson Field with cross-town rival Boston College, which finished the year ranked 24th nationally in the NSCAA poll. It will follow the home opener up with four straight road games, beginning on Aug. 28 with Rhode Island, and culminating with a showdown in Storrs, Conn., with Connecticut on Sept. 7. The Huskies finished the 2007 season ranked ninth nationally and made it to the NCAA quarterfinals. During the road stretch, BU will also face South Carolina of the SEC and Ivy League foe Princeton.

Other high points of the schedule include home games against the Big Ten's Wisconsin and an appearance in the University of Minnesota tournament with host-school Minnesota and Wisconsin-Milwaukee from Sept. 19-20.

BU will continue with its non-conference slate late into September with a home match versus Brown on Sept. 25, before opening league play with Albany at Nickerson Field on Sept. 28. The Terriers will make a quick detour from America East action to travel to Dartmouth in early October before resuming conference play with Vermont on Oct. 5 in Burlington, Vt.

"The conference games in 2008 will again be very competitive and challenging," continued Feldman. "UNH, Stony Brook, Hartford and Maine have many talented returning players and should be even stronger this coming year. While Vermont, Albany, UMBC and Binghamton struggled a bit in 2007, they should all be improve teams this fall with the addition of new coaches in a couple of cases, and moving from young teams to more veteran squads." Every conference game will be a battle."

During the rest of the AE slate, the Terriers will host Maine (Oct. 12), UNH (Oct. 16) and Stony Brook (Oct. 19), while traveling to Binghamton (Oct. 9), UMBC (Oct. 23) and Hartford (Oct. 26).

"Our goals are to remain consistent in our performance and our approach from the beginning of the season with our non conference schedule, through the conference competitions in October," concluded Feldman.

On Nov. 5, BU will begin its quest to capture back-to-back America East championships in the AE tournament for the first time since it accomplished the feat in 2000 and 2001 and make its fourth straight trip to the NCAA tourney.

* University of Minnesota Soccer Tournament