An 0-2 start against two of the better teams in the country, #1 Virginia and #14 Harvard, put a young Seawolves squad in a hole to begin the season.
“We’re an inexperienced team still trying to find our way,” Head Coach Rick Sowell said after the team’s loses to Harvard.
Since those early season losses the Seawolves have seemingly turned it around, winning four in a row. Two of those wins were in convincing fashion, while the other two went right down to the wire.
After being snowed out on March 3 against Lehigh, the Seawolves came back the next day to battle the Mountain Hawks. Stony Brook fell behind 1-0 early, but afterwards dominated the first quarter. They ripped off eight straight goals in the frame, and added the first two in the second quarter to jump out to a 10-1 lead.
Lehigh was able to get some offense going later in the game, but never enough to put any pressure on the Seawolves. The game ended 16-6 in Stony Brook’s favor, with Canadian sophomores Kevin Crowley and Jordan McBride leading the way with four goals each.
The Seawolves next victory was a hard fought game at Siena. Stony Brook never trailed in the game, but also never led by more than two goals.
Stony Brook led 5-3 at the end of the first half after a goal by sophomore Timmy Trenkle.
It was tied going in the fourth quarter, and each team scored once to push the score to 7-7. The game remained tied until the final minutes, when freshman Robbie Campbell scored the game winner unassisted.
The next game for the Seawolves was even closer. The Delaware Blue Hens, who the Seawolves defeated last season in a breakout game for McBride, visited LaValle Stadium. McBride again found himself in the middle of the action, and although he didn’t score 10 goals this time, he did net the most important goal of the game.
The Seawolves led 9-7 with five minutes remaining in the game, but Delaware was able to beat goalie Charlie Parr twice to knot the game up.
It was off to sudden death overtime, where Tom Compitello made a great pass over the cross bar to McBride, who had a wide-open net to deposit the ball.
“That was a heck of a game,” Sowell said. “I really proud of my guys for battling. The past couple of weeks we have been in some battles.”
Trenkle also had one of his best games of the season, scoring three goals.
“We’re finding ourselves,” Trenkle said. “We’re a young group, but we’re coming together, finding out what we can do and work off each other.”
The final game of the streak saw the Seawolves win in another dominating performance. By the time the game was eight minutes old the Seawolves held a 6-0 lead.
The Seawolves wound up winning the game 12-9. Lafayette was able to get the game within two goals, but never any closer than that.
“We’re starting to get into game shape,” McBride said.
“We’re doing things totally different offensively (from a few weeks ago),” Sowell said. “We scraped some things, we brought some things back from a year ago. It’s starting to come together. Playing in the heat of battle certainly helps.”
