Coming off a disappointing game against Long Island Rival Hofstra in which the Seawolves allowed 10 straight goals after being up 5-1, things were not any better Saturday afternoon in New Hampshire.
It was a busy day for Seawolves goalie Mickey Cahill as the women’s lacrosse team struggled to find both defense and offense against the New Hampshire Wildcats.
Cahill made a career-high 20 saves on 54 shots as the Wildcats, now 7-3 (1-1), cruised to a 21-7 win over the Seawolves, who fell to 3-7 (0-2) on the year. The Seawolves had 13 shots on goal.
The Seawolves knew they needed to dig in the trenches for this game when the first goal came 45 seconds in. A free-position shot from Michaela Hardy made it 1-0, and then a second free-position shot by Hardy just 30 seconds later made it 2-0. Then the proverbial floodgates opened up.
The Wildcats scored three goals in the next four minutes, all unassisted, to increase their lead to 5-0. The whirlwind continued until the Wildcats made it 11-0 nothing with 5:26 remaining in the first half.
Stony Brook’s first goal came when attacker Kim Wodiska, from Lake Ronkonkoma, NY, ripped a feed from Jackie Hughes to put the Seawolves on the board with 1:55 left in the first half. New Hampshire responded quickly to close out the first half with a score of 12-1, and with the shot count totaling 36-4. Cahill, who hails from Bay Shore, NY, stopped 11 of the 36 shots in a dizzying half.
The second half started very promising for the Seawolves, who desperately needed a fire lit under them to get going.
Samantha Djaha answered that call. Djaha, a sophomore from East Islip, NY, scored at 29:14 on an unassisted scorcher to start the Seawolves scoring drive. Despite an answer from New Hampshire to make it 13-2, the Seawolves went on a run of their own, scoring four goals in a span of seven minutes.
The first Seawolf to step up was Kaitlin Leggio of Bay Shore, NY. Jenna Celano assisted on Leggio’s 27th of the season. Samantha Djaha put away her second of the day unassisted to pull the Seawolves to 13-4. Melissa Cook, from Bay Shore, NY, and Kim Wodiska each traded free-position goals two minutes apart to pull the Seawolves to with seven with a little more than 12 and change left to play. This would be the closest the Seawolves got to the Wildcats all day when New Hampshire scored back to back goals before Amy Hallion added the last Stony Brook goal on a feed from Samantha Djaha, who finished with three points on the day.
New Hampshire would go on to score six unanswered goals during the rest of the second half, and when all was said and done, the final score was 21-7. Mickey Cahill played through the tough times and wound up with 20 saves through 60 minutes on 54 shots, a game Cahill would like to forget. A game the women’s team would like to forget.
The forgetting process will begin on April 4 when the Seawolves start a three game homestand against Boston University, Binghamton, and Albany, all important America East conference games.
