The Stony Brook women’s soccer team suffered a frustrating loss Thursday night as they fell to the Maine Black Bears 1-0 at home. The Seawolves had plenty of opportunities throughout the game, but could not find the back of the net in their first home loss of the season. The loss brought Stony Brook’s home record to 17-4-2 since the start of the 2012 season and 0-2 in conference play this year.
“You know Maine’s a great team. It’s a great battle all the time and it’s a wonderful rivalry that we have. I think today’s game shows a little bit about what the America East is about in terms of any given day,” Stony Brook Head Coach Sue Ryan said.
The first half was an even 45 minutes as both teams seemed as though they were looking to figure each other out. Teams traded chances to end the half, yet both were unable to make anything of it. This resulted in a scoreless half with Stony Brook leading Maine in shots 6-5.
The lone goal of the game came not even five minutes into the second half. Eve L’Abbe finished off a beautiful sequence where a free kick from goalkeeper Claudia Dube-Trempe was flicked on by Camille V-Tremblay over the Stony Brook defense to L’Abbe. She corralled the pass and put it away at 4:31 to give the Black Bears a lead they’d hold on to for the game.
Following the goal, Stony Brook showed some urgency, as the team was able to ramp up the pressure and create some offensive chances. The Seawolves did their job producing shots during the second half as they led Maine 9-5. They were not able to capitalize on those chances though due to a combination of offside calls, errant passes and a few shots that were too wide. Possibly the best chance out of those nine shots came in the 11th minute of the second half on a Tessa Devereaux pass to Raven Edwards, who was in alone but shot it wide right.
“It’s a matter of execution under pressure which is a lot easier said than done,” Ryan explained. “They capitalized on their chances and we did not, I think that was the difference in the game.”
Another difference in the game that may be worth a mention was the number of offsides Stony Brook committed. Maine was able to limit themselves to only one offside call, while Stony Brook was tagged with six for the game. This cut short many of Stony Brook’s rushes and wasted chances to score a tying goal. Surely this will be something to improve upon as the Seawolves look to move on from this loss.
“It’s really a one game at a time attitude,” Ryan said. “So now our sights are set on Sunday.”
The team’s sights will be set on the UMBC Retrievers as the two face-off on Sunday at 1 p.m. in Baltimore. Stony Brook hopes to notch its first conference win this season. The game could prove to be crucial to the Seawolves playoff chances as falling to 0-3 in conference could put them in an overwhelming hole.
