The Stony Brook women’s soccer team’s three-game losing streak is over — but that’s about the only positive takeaway from a week that saw the Seawolves fall to 5-8-2 (2-4-1 AE). With only two games remaining, Stony Brook will finish the regular season with a losing record for the first time since 2015.
Stony Brook fought to a scoreless draw with the Binghamton Bearcats this Thursday, Oct. 14 and lost 2-0 to the Hartford Hawks on Sunday, Oct. 17. The Seawolves have scored only one goal in the five games since graduate forward Alyssa Francese recorded a hat trick against Vermont.
Head coach Tobias Bischof, though, was proud of his team’s effort against Binghamton. The Seawolves controlled the ball for 58 percent of the game and took 15 shots, led by a season-high six shots from Francese.
“I think if you watch the game, I think we have to be okay with the result,” Bischof said in an interview with The Statesman. “We had the ball in a lot of situations where we wanted to have the ball, we just didn’t finish our chances.”
In the 88th minute, Binghamton freshman midfielder Alex Marsteller weaved through three Stony Brook defenders to launch a powerful shot towards the center of the net. Junior goalkeeper Emerson Richmond Burke leaped forward to catch the shot and send the game to overtime, one of five saves she made to record her fourth shutout of the season.
Burke took her intensity to another level in overtime, leaping up and down inside the net for most of the period. She drew a foul in the 100th minute while sprinting downfield and saved a header off a free kick by Binghamton, one of five shots the Bearcats took in the final 10 minutes.
But the Seawolves failed to generate any offense to help Burke. They extended possessions in opposing territory more often than in past games but took only one shot during the two 10-minute overtime periods. Their best chance came in the 100th minute when Francese broke away and crossed a pass to junior defender Rachael Peters, but it was quickly intercepted midway by Binghamton.
“We get the ball into good positions,” Bischof said. “We just need a little bit more quality upfront. A little bit more calmness … to put the ball in. We normally have more passes [than other teams], we have more entries into the final third. It’s just the result is not there right now.”
Stony Brook faced the exact same issue against Hartford. Seventy percent of their possessions were spent inside Hawks territory, but they came away with nothing to show for their 15 shots.
The Hawks took just five shots (four on goal), but an uncharacteristically shaky Burke saved only two of them.
Stony Brook is now seventh in the America East standings, one spot away from the postseason cutoff. Its two remaining games are against UMass Lowell (4-2-1 AE) and UMBC (1-4-1 AE).
