At first, during the Saturday matchup with America East rival Binghamton, Stony Brook’s women’s lacrosse team did not look quite like the dominant force they have been all season. In the fourth and fifth minutes of the game, the flat-footed defense allowed two goals in eighty-two seconds.
Then the Seawolves appeared to remember who they were and scored 11 straight goals on their way to a 20-4 victory, improving their conference record to 3-0 and their overall record to 11-1. Binghamton dropped to 1-1 in conference play and 5-8 overall.
“We’re not gonna go down to anyone else’s level,” junior midfielder Samantha DiSalvo said. “We’re going to play like we’re known to play.”
And that they did. DiSalvo, scoreless in her last four games, scored four times, tying her season high in goals.
Eleven different players scored goals in the rout, more than in any other game the season. The victory was also tied for Stony Brook’s highest scoring effort of the season, in large part due to the team’s 15 assists, something coach Joe Spallina happily emphasized.
“Coach was saying it in the locker room before, if some of our big scorers aren’t really scoring that much, can’t find the cage, we have got back-up scorers,” junior attacker Kylie Ohlmiller said. “Sammy [DiSalvo] and [Kristin] Yevoli had huge games today.”
Kristin Yevoli, a senior, and Taryn Ohlmiller, a freshman, each added three goals apiece in the effort. The younger Ohlmiller sister notched four assists.
Meanwhile, the elder Ohlmiller had her lowest goal total since the first game of the season, scoring once. She did, however, add seven assists to put her point total at 85 this season, the most in the nation. Her 133 career assists now place her 17th all-time in NCAA Division I history.
“You gotta have that maestro,” Spallina said of Ohlmiller’s play creating ability.
Spallina also said that she was “like one of the Beatles,” but that was in reference to the throng of adolescent girls waiting for autographs after the game, a now normal sight at home games for the Seawolves.
“To have all those little girls looking up to you, it’s awesome.” Ohlmiller said. “It’s awesome for us to be able to know we’re role models for them because we know when we were little we had girls that we looked up to and wanted to sign lacrosse balls for us.”
Ohlmiller, in between appearances on ESPN, has firmly supplanted herself in the conversation for Tewaarton Award, the college lacrosse award for most outstanding player. This, coupled with the the team’s rise to the top of the national rankings, has encouraged hundreds of young lacrosse fans show up weekly to watch the “maestro” at work. The official attendance at Saturday’s game was 1077.
“Defensively we can be better,” Spallina said after the team’s 16-goal victory and 17th straight home win. “I think we play with so much emotion and fire, there are times, without realizing it, you can lose that killer instinct.”
Does that mean Spallina is worried about the intensity of play the players will take into their next matchup at John Hopkins?
“Nah,” Spallina said. The Ohlmiller sisters and DiSalvo, sitting beside him, laughed in agreement.
After facing John Hopkins on Tuesday, a game which will be nationally broadcast on ESPNU, the Seawolves will travel to Vermont for a Friday game. Then, following an eight-day break, they will travel to UMBC on April 22nd and Hofstra on April 24th.
The next, and final, home game of the season will be on Saturday April 29th at noon.
