The Boston University men’s soccer Terriers earned the No. 4 seed in the Patriot League and will visit Lehigh University Tuesday for the semifinals. Photo by Trinity Robbins

Varsity Sports

BU Men’s Soccer Heads to Lehigh for Patriot League Semifinal Tuesday

The No. 4 seed Terriers advance after defeating Bucknell 3-1 in tournament opening round

For the first time under head coach Kevin Nylen, the Boston University men’s soccer team had to play for a Patriot League semifinal berth.

The Terriers had secured a first-round bye and a top-two seed in the conference tournament for the previous three seasons. This year, BU scraped its way to the No. 4 seed, going 1-4 in its last four league games. But the Terriers ended the regular season with a 2-1 win over the College of the Holy Cross on November 4.

“We hit a spell in four games at the end. The reality is that could have happened at any point in the year,” Nylen says. 

Ending the regular season with a win was important so BU could enter the postseason with confidence, the coach says. Team member Ethan Gill (CAS’26) agrees: “That only just helps us with momentum.”

That momentum carried over to the Terriers’ opening round match in the Patriot League tournament, when they beat Bucknell University 3-1 at Nickerson Field November 8. After falling behind 1-0 early, they rattled off three unanswered goals, two from Alex Bonnington (Questrom’26) and one from Gill.

BU will travel to Bethlehem, Pa., Tuesday, to take on No. 2 seed Lehigh University in the semifinal.

The senior players know what it takes to win, having captured the league championship in 2023.

“We have the experience,” Diego Rived (Questrom’26) says. “But we know that every year is different and every game is different. We’ve got to focus on this year and how we can win every single game.”

BU lost to Lehigh’s Mountain Hawks 2-0 at home on October 25, but Gill says that they’re not discouraged—especially when it means win or go home. “You can look back on the film and look at tendencies, but at the end of the day, we played that game several weeks ago. Obviously, with it now being a win-or-go-home situation, that could look a little different,” he says.

“That mentality shift is what we’re really focusing on,” Rived adds.

Nylen says the team needs to “keep doing what we’ve been doing all season long”: dictating play offensively and staying structured on defense. At this point of the year, nothing changes, he adds.

“This is another day of training where we need to be prepping and focused,” Nylen says. “It’s another game where we have the opportunity to advance and to not really deviate from what we do.”

“Guys know that we have to empty the tank,” Gill says. “Obviously, each game is a must-win, so we want to go out there and just leave it all on the field and not feel like we held anything back.”

It’s the last dance for the Terriers’ 11 seniors, who are putting everything on the line so they can hoist the Patriot League championship trophy on November 15. Conversely, BU has six freshmen, who have yet to play in a league semifinal.

“Something I try to share is doing everything the right way,” Rived says. “When you do everything the right way, good things happen to you.”

The BU men’s soccer team battles Lehigh in the Patriot League semifinal game Tuesday, November 11, at 7 pm in Bethlehem, Pa. The game will be streamed on ESPN+. The league’s championship will be held Sunday, November 15, and will be broadcast on ESPN+.