The air was cold but the Stony Brook offense was colder as the #10 Cornell Big Red beat the #12 Stony Brook Seawolves, 17-9, on Tuesday night at LaValle Stadium.
The Seawolves looked a shadow of the team that was ranked as high as #4 in the country in the preseason, dropping passes and yielding large amounts of possession to the visitors. Stony Brook has never defeated Cornell, going 0-5 against the Big Red.
Cornell opened the scoring when David Lau capitalized on a Kevin Crowley (New Westminster, B.C.) turnover with 12:15 left in the first. Lau finished with five goals.
The Big Red scored again a little over a minute later when Tom Compitello (Hauppauge, N.Y.) dropped a pass. Cornell’s Rob Pannell raced away with the ground ball and passed to Roy Lang, who scored low.
Cornell had obviously watched tape on Stony Brook goaltender Rob Camposa (Syosset, N.Y.), as the Big Red took shot after shot low, scoring plenty of goals as a result. Camposa finished with 10 saves, and was pulled for the final three minutes after having allowed all 17 goals.
Lau scored again before Russ Bonanno (Seaford, N.Y.) finally found net for the Seawolves with 3:08 to go in the first.
Cornell then scored four straight, including a goal from about midfield when a Cornell attacker intercepted a Camposa pass, before Compitello received a pass from Crowley and stuck it in.
The teams went into the half with Cornell holding a commanding 11-3 lead.
The Big Red was able to stretch that lead to 15-6 by the end of the third quarter, and the game was truly out of Stony Brook’s reach.
Crowley led the Seawolves with two goals and two assists, but persistent Cornell double-teams held him in check for most of the night. Short Stony Brook possessions also limited him, keeping him off the field. Still, his four points were enough to move him to the top of Stony Brook’s all-time points list.
Faceoff man Adam Rand (Niantic, Conn.) won just 13-of-22 for the Seawolves, well below his usual percentage.
Compitello had three goals for the Seawolves.
It was the second-straight loss for the Seawolves, who fell to 3-3 this season. Cornell is 5-2.
Stony Brook’s next game is at home on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Seawolves will face Bryant in what is Stony Brook’s last non-conference game before America East play.
Ed • Mar 24, 2011 at 3:41 pm
If Stony Brook doesn’t step up then their defense their is no way this team is going to make it past the NCAA tournament first round. A loss against Cornell, and a huge lost to Towson. A season that was thought to be a build on last years has turned out be so far depressive for Seawolves fans like me. It seems like the loss of our defense to graduation has hit us harder than what anyone expected. Most likely, Stony Brook will stay in the Top 20 even with this major loss but what do the rankings mean when you lack good wins. With no wins against ranked teams so far the only thing that can possibly place us in the Tourney this post-season is an America East tournament berth (nothing to be proud of as we have achieved that twice already). Good Luck Stony Brook Men’s Lacrosse from a big fan! Tomorrow’s game against Bryant should be awesome, play your best!!! GO SEAWOLVES!2