STONY BROOK, N.Y. – The Stony Brook women's lacrosse team closed out yet another perfect conference regular season; however, this time it was for the CAA. The Seawolves defeated Hofstra, 18-6, on Friday evening at Kenneth P. LaValle to secure their first-ever CAA regular season crown.
Junior midfielder
Ellie Masera made her presence known all over the field, leading the Stony Brook offense with five goals. Senior attacker
Kailyn Hart followed behind Masera with four goals and senior attacker
Morgan Mitchell recorded a hat trick. Senior midfielder
Charlotte Verhulst and junior midfielder
Jaden Hampel added a pair each in the contest.
The Seawolves fell behind early as the Pride scored the first goal of the game. Despite the 1-0 deficit, the squad answered back in Stony Brook fashion with a goal of their own less than a minute later courtesy of Hampel.
With 11:23 remaining in the first quarter, Hart found the back of the cage off an assist from Masera to give the Seawolves control of the lead. Masera followed Hart with her first goal of the contest to increase the lead to 3-1. On the next possession, Hofstra's Megan Flannery converted a woman-up goal to cut the Pride's deficit to just one. The one goal deficit is the closest Hofstra would come to the Seawolves' lead as the Stony Brook added two more goals in the first to enter the quarter break, 5-2.
The Seawolves went on to outscore the Pride 13-4 throughout the remaining three quarters of the match to ultimately secure the 18-6 victory and the regular season title.
STATS AND NOTES
- Stony Brook averaged a 11.6 goal margin against CAA opponents this season, holding six of the seven teams to six goals or fewer.
- Joe Spallina's club extended its conference winning streak as they won their 67th consecutive contest against conference opposition, the longest conference winning streak in the NCAA.
- Masera finished the day with five goals, a career-high tying four assists, a career-high nine points, a career-high five caused turnovers, and a season-high tying 10 draw controls. Masera finished the regular season with 94 draw controls, totaling 219 in her career which places her fourth overall in program history, just under Michelle Rubino's 238.
- Hart tallied four goals on the night, marking her 13th multi-goal game of the regular season. She has registered two or more goals in her last nine of 10 contests.
- Mitchell finished the regular season with her fifth hat trick of the season. She has recorded two or more goals in 13 of the 15 games.
- Hampel and Verhulst both recorded a pair of goals and an assist in the match. Hampel picked up three groundballs and tallied four draw controls. Verhulst added two groundballs and two draw controls.
- Sophomore's Alexandra Fusco and Courtney Maclay registered a goal each in the contest.
- The Seawolves' defense held opponents to six goals or less for the seventh time this season and held Hofstra to its second lowest scoring contest of the season (Scored six against Drexel on April 22).
QUOTES FROM THE SEAWOLVES
"Great performance by our team today. We talked about this being a dangerous game, obviously with the rivalry involved and with this being their [Hofstra's] final game of the season. Those go one of two ways, it's either going to be their Super Bowl and they're going to respond to that and we're going to get their best or we talked about being really assertive in that first half and pushing them closer to not competing as hard and checking out, moving closer to summer. I thought our team came out firing and I thought our draw controls were an early difference and really the difference within the game. I thought offensively we made some great strides the past week and a half or so. We're a program that's built on practicing and practicing at a high level and player development and with our schedule we just haven't had a chance to have consistent practices without having to worry about having designated off days and their legs burning out. We practiced really well, that doesn't always translate to a game, but tonight it did," said head coach
Joe Spallina.
"I think it kind of just ended up in my stick, but it could've been Hart, it could've been anyone. I think something was clicking with me today, but our whole team was on point today and that is why we were so successful," said junior midfielder
Ellie Masera.
"We have been having very aggressive and competitive practices and I think we just need to keep that up. I think this past week we've had great energy in practices and even in warmups before this game and that reflects on the field which is what we need to keep up. That is what's going to get us far and we're starting to end seasons which is great," said senior attacker
Kailyn Hart.
NEXT UP
The Seawolves head to Towson, Md. to compete in the CAA Tournament. The squad enters as the No. 1 seed and will play the No. 4 seed in the semifinals on Thursday, May 4
th at 12 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on LacrosseTV.
