The Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team earned its 17th victory of the year Saturday afternoon in Albany to complete its America East championship regular season with a perfect record.
The Seawolves routed the Great Danes 21-8 at Albany’s John Fallon Field in the regular season finale, scoring the opening four goals of the contest and never trailing.
“It’s great for us to secure another regular-season conference title, but the biggest thing is securing home field advantage for the America East Tournament,” head coach Joe Spallina said in a post-game press release. “I thought we played well, some patches of greatness and some patches of mediocrity.”
Sophomore midfielder Ally Kennedy broke the ice for Stony Brook just over a minute into the game, scoring the first of her two goals to put the No. 1 team in the nation up early. Senior midfielder Samantha DiSalvo, redshirt-senior attacker Courtney Murphy and senior attacker Kylie Ohlmiller followed up Kennedy’s goal with tallies of their own, providing the Seawolves with a 4-0 lead before the game was four minutes old.
Albany senior attacker Emma Powlin struck next to put her team on the board, but Stony Brook lead never dipped below two goals.
Ohlmiller registered a team-high 10 points against the Great Danes, netting six goals and getting four helpers to finish the campaign with 128 points. Younger sister sophomore attacker Taryn Ohlmiller also factored in on the offense, scoring three goals and four assists.
Powlin lead the Great Danes’ scoring effort in Saturday’s match, notching five of her team’s eight goals. Sophomore midfielder Sam Tortora recorded a goal and five assists for a team-best six points on the day.
Stony Brook led Albany in a majority of team statistics, including a 37-21 edge in shots. One area where the Great Danes had an advantage was in saves. Sophomore goalkeeper Erin Leghart finished with 10 saves in 51 minutes and sophomore goalkeeper Georgia Schneidereith added one more in her nine minutes of action for a team total of 11, two more than the Seawolves’ nine.
The team, which has already broken multiple national records this season, made more history in the victory. The Seawolves’ 17-0 record marks the first time in program and Stony Brook history that a team has finished with an undefeated regular season. It is also the first time a Stony Brook Athletics program has ended a season with a No. 1 national ranking.
Spallina made it clear that though his team has had success this year, a national championship is the ultimate goal.
“We’ll continue to strive for consistency as we head into the postseason. Being 17-0 and finishing our regular season undefeated is incredible, but our real season starts on Friday.”
Stony Brook will be the No. 1 seed in this year’s America East tournament and will host No. 4 New Hampshire this Friday at 4:30 p.m. in the semifinals at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium.
