ALBANY, N.Y. — The Stony Brook women's lacrosse team took a while to rev back up after a three-week layoff. Once the Seawolves awakened, they claimed an historic victory.
Stony Brook notched its
50th straight win against an America East opponent with a 17-10 victory against host UAlbany on Saturday.
Among Division I sports tracked by the NCAA, only Oklahoma softball has a longer conference winning streak — 60 games within the Big 12 entering this weekend.
"Fifty straight wins in our conference is a pretty impressive milestone for our program," coach
Joe Spallina said. "The best part about it is that it includes so many alumni. It's a tribute to our players, though, that they don't get caught looking ahead and do a great job of being where their feet are."
Playing for the first time since April 3 due to assorted teams' COVID-19 pauses, Stony Brook found itself trailing 3-0 midway through the first half.
Five different Seawolves —
Taryn Ohlmiller,
Kailyn Hart,
Sarah Pulis,
Siobhan Rafferty and
Bridget Considine — then rattled off goals in a 3-minute, 33-second span and Stony Brook led the rest of the way.
Freshly named Tewaraaton Award nominee
Ally Kennedy led the Seawolves with five goals as Stony Brook improved to 10-2 overall and 6-0 in America East while extending its winning streak to eight games.
Ellie Masera and Ohlmiller each added a hat trick.
Stony Brook has reduced its magic number to one to clinch its eighth straight America East title.
The Seawolves have not lost an America East game since April 26, 2014, an overtime defeat in the regular-season finale at Vermont.
"It was their Senior Day," Spallina said about UAlbany's quick start. "We knew they would come out full of energy. We had not played in 21 days. And it looked like that early on.
"We called a timeout and had a little one-sided intervention and they responded. From that point on, it was a 10-goal game. Our kids were motivated coming into the game for a number of reasons. Our team is starting to round into form and that's a great sign."
