With the stinging memory of a heartbreaking fourth-quarter collapse to St. John’s in mind, the Stony Brook’s men’s lacrosse team was able to fend off a billowing Fairfield team and take a 10-9 home win.
“It was good to pull away against a real quality team in Fairfield. [Fairfield was a] twelve-win team last year, so it’s a really big win for us,” Head Coach Jim Nagle said. “The guys have been working really hard and it’s nice to see us come out. We’ve come out on the upsetting sides of those recently. It was good to get a big win in a close game like that.”
The Seawolves came out of the gates aggressively, with sophomore midfielder Jeff Reh scoring his first goal of the year in transition off of a turnover and junior attack Brody Eastwood burying a shot after key ball movement opened up Fairfield’s defense within the first three minutes of the game.
Mike Rooney dished an assist on both goals and finished the day with seven, surpassing a career-high of six assists in one game, which was set in game against Fairfield two years ago.
“I’m just getting it and passing it off to someone else for a shot,” Rooney said. “Everyone can finish on our offense and just moving the ball makes it easy.”
Stony Brook led 5-1 at the end of the first quarter, but the Stags were able to grind their way back into the game and continued to chip away at the lead.
After recovering six turnovers in the second and successfully winning 14 of 22 total faceoffs, Fairfield was able to put away five goals, three of which came unassisted by way of senior attack Colin McLinden, in the second and third periods.
This set up a 8-6 Stony Brook lead going into the fourth.
Stony Brook successfully held on to its lead throughout the whole game due, in large part to a zone defense that disallowed interior play and forced Fairfield to take many ill-advised shots.
After a timely fourth quarter save by freshman goalkeeper Brandon Maciejewski, who notched nine total saves, Stony Brook held possession until junior midfielder Chris Hughes scored his third goal of the game with a Rooney assist.
Fairfield soon responded with a goal of its own at the 8:30 mark, making the score 9-8 Stony Brook.
Sophomore midfielder Ryan Bitzer then iced it with his second goal of the season with 5:20 left.
Next up for Stony Brook is a matchup with 2-0 Marist on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. On Sunday they will stay on the road to face Rutgers.
