Just over a week ago, the No. 22 Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team was defeated by unranked Colorado. A controversial call by the officials that gave the Buffaloes a fresh shot clock with less than two minutes remaining allowed for the upset to materialize and left head coach Joe Spallina irate. 

Bad call or not, the loss worsened the Seawolves’ record to 5-3, marking their worst start to a year since 2019. The defeat was also Stony Brook’s second loss to an unranked opponent in 2025 through eight games — a rare occurrence in previous seasons. Between 2020 and 2024, the Seawolves were taken down by an unranked foe just once — in 2023, it was defeated by Rutgers.

Due to heavy roster turnover, this year was expected to be more of a challenge. After all, Stony Brook has just one everyday returning starter from 2024: defender Avery Hines. 

Following the upset loss to Colorado, the Seawolves rebounded by blowing out Delaware and Vermont in consecutive contests. Despite its relative struggles in non-conference affairs, Stony Brook’s longest active winning streak against conference opponents across all NCAA Division I sports — which is now at 63 — remains intact, as the team is 2-0 in Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) play to start its 2025 season.

Now sitting at 7-3 and one misstep away from falling out of the national rankings, the Seawolves will look to feast on their conference to ensure that does not happen. Stony Brook has six league games and one non-conference contest remaining before playoffs.

With the regular season dwindling, here are some takeaways from the Seawolves’ 2025 journey to this point.

Draw unit struggles

In what turned out to be the final collegiate game for one of the program’s greatest cores ever, Stony Brook was dominated in the circle in its season-ending defeat to Syracuse in the Second Round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. The Orange’s draw specialist — Kate Mashewske, and her “magical stick,” as Spallina referred to it in a postgame press conference — nearly single-handedly influenced the affair’s outcome, as the Seawolves’ fate was sealed by Syracuse’s 22-7 advantage in the draw control battle.

Although Mashewske’s talent is unique and she has since graduated — which Stony Brook is likely not too upset about, especially if it ends up facing the Orange in the national tournament again — the Seawolves’ struggles in that department have been evident in 2025 against other competition.

Stony Brook has controlled 51.3% of draws this year, though that number is clearly inflated when it faces lower competition. For example, the Seawolves outdueled the Catamounts and its two CAA opponents a combined 55 to 27 across three contests. Conversely, in their three losses, it controlled just 37.3% draws, which translates to 28 of 75.

Stony Brook’s draw unit — which ranks fourth in the conference in draw controls per game (13.40), though that stat can easily be misconstrued — consists primarily of midfielders Isabella Caporuscio, Alexandra Fusco, Braeden Siverson and Gianna Forte, along with attacker Courtney Maclay.

Siverson stands out in particular, given the context of her role on Stony Brook’s roster. Although Spallina rarely leverages the transfer portal and prefers developing homegrown talent, he brought in Siverson specifically to tackle the team’s draw issues against higher competition, which naturally worsened when all of the players involved with the unit last year — including Charlotte Verhulst, who is now on Spallina’s coaching staff — exhausted their eligibility.

However, Siverson did not get many reps until recently in this campaign. After registering seven draw controls throughout her first six outings, Siverson has controlled 12 draws in the Seawolves’ last two affairs. Having cemented herself as Stony Brook’s primary draw taker, Siverson will play a significant role for the rest of the season, hoping to continue to turn the team’s draw unit’s fortunes around.

Secure last line of defense

For 2023, Spallina acquired goalkeeper Hailey Duchnowski — the reigning Northeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year — from LIU. 

For 2024, Spallina acquired goalkeeper Emily Manning — the reigning America East Goalkeeper of the Year — from Binghamton. 

In both instances, things did not work out. Duchnowski placed last in the league out of nine goalkeepers in save percentage (.369). A year later, Manning ranked ninth out of 11 netminders in the same stat (.388).

The backup for the two in both campaigns — goalkeeper Aaliyah Jones — fared slightly better. She put up a .485 save percentage across nine appearances in 2023 and a .405 save percentage in 14 outings during the 2024 campaign. Although she started seven games last season — compared to none the year before — Jones chose to transfer to Virginia Tech for 2025, where she has registered a .464 save percentage as the Hokies’ everyday starting goalkeeper.

Jones’ departure opened the door for a four-way competition for the starting spot between the pipes, which was contested between goalkeepers Ava Yancey, Francesca Viteritti, Hannah Hudson and Natalia Altebrando. The quartet is made up of a freshman (Yancey), two sophomores (Hudson and Altebrando) and a junior (Viteritti), signifying the opportunity for a long-term netminder solution for once.

As the front runner for the spot going into the season, Altebrando has solidified the position with her performance this year. Through seven outings — including six starts — she is second in the CAA in save percentage (.513) and two spots above Drexel goalkeeper Jenika Cuocco. Cuocco — the 2025 CAA Preseason Player of the Year — has put up a .475 save percentage, way below her career average coming into 2025 of .551.

If Altebrando can provide the stability the Seawolves have longed for in the cage, the team may be able to remedy areas of weakness in the push for national notoriety.

Attacking depth concern

Replacing — or at least attempting something along those lines — a pair of Stony Brook legends in Ellie Masera and Kailyn Hart was undoubtedly a priority, albeit a challenging one, in the offseason for Spallina. A plan seemed to be solidified coming into the year, with replacements for all of the departing offensive contributors picked out.

Attackers Charlotte Wilmoth and Riley McDonald — transfer acquisitions from UMass and Longwood, respectively — were at the heart of the new attacking strategy and have delivered in 2025 thus far.

The pair have spearheaded the second-best attack in the conference, averaging 14.40 goals per game. Wilmoth leads the team with 33 goals to go with nine assists, while McDonald has tallied 27 goals and three assists. They rank third and eighth in the league in goals per game with 3.60 and 2.70, respectively.

Alongside doing everything else on the field, Caporuscio has also chipped in offensively with 25 goals and seven assists. Fusco is the only other double-digit scorer on the Seawolves, having scored 18 goals and dished out seven assists.

From the X, attacker Casey Colbert is Stony Brook’s primary facilitator. She has dished out 26 assists along with netting nine goals this campaign. Those numbers have allowed Colbert to grow into one of the CAA’s premier playmakers, as she ranks second in the conference with 2.60 assists per game.

Outside of the aforementioned five, quantity is nowhere to be found. Last season, although Masera and Hart, alongside Alex Finn accounted for 56.5% (294-of-519) of the Seawolves’ points, the other attacking weapons for Stony Brook — such as Verhulst, Morgan Mitchell and Jaden Hampel — were proven collegiate players, the same of which cannot be said for this year’s offensive roster outside of Maclay. 

Coming into this season, Spallina sang Maclay’s praises. Although her contributions evidently go beyond the statsheet, she has not posted eye-opening numbers to this point. Maclay is in her third campaign with consistent playing time and has tallied just nine goals and six assists in 2025 while committing 15 turnovers, the third most on the team behind Colbert (18) and McDonald (16).

Beyond her, attacker Haydin Eisfeld is the Seawolves’ only other tenable attacking threat, and she has registered nine goals and eight assists. She is only a sophomore, as is Caporuscio. On the other hand, Wilmoth and McDonald are graduate students, while Fusco, Colbert and Maclay are seniors, leaving Stony Brook’s future on the offensive side in doubt due to its relative lack of depth.

“Plug-and-play” is alive and well

For a second consecutive year, the Seawolves’ endline has been a revolving door. Regardless, Stony Brook — for a fourth straight season — features a top-10 defense in the nation. It is tied for eighth in the NCAA’s leaderboard alongside South Florida in scoring defense, having conceded just 8.70 goals per game thus far in 2025. It also naturally contains the best endline in the conference.

Outside of Hines — who leads the team in caused turnovers (34) and is second in ground balls (26), along with ranking first in the conference and third in the nation in caused turnovers per game (3.40) and seventh in the conference in ground balls per contest (2.60) — the other starters on the Seawolves’ endline are all doing so for the first time. Defenders Alexa Constant, Abby Sabella and Morgan Harloff, alongside midfielder Allie Masera, have filled Spallina’s unique zone scheme to great effect.

Constant and Masera — the most experienced of the four — have played and started in all 10 of Stony Brook’s games and have been solid. Constant is third on the Seawolves in both caused turnovers (10) and ground balls (17). Conversely, Masera has registered six caused turnovers and 16 ground balls.

Along with other defensive contributors such as Alexandra Fusco and midfielder Julia Fusco, the five have propelled Stony Brook to second in the league in caused turnovers per game (10.30) and fourth in ground balls per contest (17.60), all despite the unexpected loss of midfielder Jordan Forte, who was slated to be an endline starter but suffered a season-ending ACL injury in the team’s opener against Bryant.

Caporuscio also deserves a mention in this department, though she also does in every other area outside of the cage. She has done it all this season, as, alongside her 32 points, Caporuscio has tallied 21 caused turnovers and 29 ground balls with 43 draw controls — the latter of which leads the Seawolves.