Stony Brook women’s lacrosse Head Coach Joe Spallina was not thrilled with his team on a quiet Wednesday night at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium when the No. 9/8 Seawolves played Binghamton.
The thing is, his team won 15-2.
“We won and that’s a positive thing, but I wasn’t pleased with our overall performance,” Spallina said, as his Seawolves moved to 10-0 on the season and 2-0 in America East play. “I felt like we lowered our level. It was probably the worst game that we’ve played as a team all season.”
That does not only say something about the quality of this team, but the state of the Seawolves women’s lacrosse program on a whole. No matter the final score, the team still has expectations.
“Stony Brook needs to be better,” he said. “We didn’t perform like a top-ten team tonight.”
One could only wonder what a Stony Brook team in full-bloom will look like. One of the pieces that had not been her typical overpowering-self early on in the season was sophomore Dorrien Van Dyke. Last year’s team leader in points and the second highest-scoring freshman in the country has been good compared to everyone else’s standards, but again, it says something about how good she is when Van Dyke could get better, as she steadily has.
“It’s a good sign, it’s been coming, we talked about it last game but now it’s a consistent thing,” Spallina said about Van Dyke, who now sits in second on the team in goals for the year. “She started off a little tight in the season.”
But, as he would note, after four goals and three assists against Oregon and now five more goals against Binghamton, Van Dyke is showing why she became known as a standout player.
“She’s a superstar in my eyes. A kid that size who can attack the cage the way she does, with unbelievable stick skills, it was only a matter of time before she erupted and kind of got in an offensive groove,” Spallina said. “I’m thrilled for her because I know she was pressing early on and now it’s just consistently she’s putting up some strong numbers and making us a better offense.”
A key against the Bearcats was Binghamton’s attempt to cut off sophomore Courtney Murphy and freshman Kylie Ohlmiller, both of whom have been on a tear all season long. That left a lot of open space in which the Seawolves forced their way into scoring positions rather than fluidly working as a unit, which Spallina would prefer.
“I think it was probably our lowest assist total that we’ve had in a game all season in a game that we scored 15 goals,” he said.
Nevertheless, Stony Brook beat an America East team by 13 goals. There was not a moment when the final outcome was in doubt. So, if the Seawolves were not on cloud nine with their performance, there can only be optimism for how they will come out and attack the nation’s most prolific offense in Albany on Saturday at home.
“When you win 15-2 and you can feel that you’ve really played poorly, I think that’s probably a good sign of where we’ve come in a short amount of time,” Spallina said.
