by Chris Detwiler
The Stony Brook University men’s lacrosse team dominated in a 14-7 victory over the UMBC Retrievers on Saturday, March 23 at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium on Long Island in the Seawolves’ most dominant offensive performance of the season.
“I thought we did a great job finishing,” Stony Brook head coach Jim Nagle said. “The defense helps your offense sometimes so if you play good defense, that puts less pressure on the offense.”
Three Seawolves recorded hat tricks in the 14-goal showing by Stony Brook (4-4, 1-1). Junior Tom Haun scored four goals and classmate Chris Pickel, Jr. as well as freshman Layton Harrell scored three goals.
For Pickel, Jr. and Harrell, those are career highs.
“[Harrell], as a freshman for us, has been a really dynamic player,” Nagle said. “They weren’t necessarily prepared for him. He has an unbelievable shot.”
This was the third hat trick of the season for Haun, the Seawolves’ leading scorer.
“I struggled the last couple of games finishing the ball,” Haun said. “But instead of giving up on me, coach challenged me all week in practice to work on that aspect of the game.”
Stony Brook’s junior goalie Michael Bollinger finished the afternoon with 10 saves, his third double-digit save performance in a row and fifth of the season.
“[Bollinger] has really been fantastic,” Nagle said. “We’re really getting good goalie play. I’m really confident that we can be solid there for the rest of the year.”
Defense was the story of the first half as the Seawolves shut out the retrievers and limited them to 11 shots in the first two quarters.
“We really had to focus this week on playing much better team defense,” Nagle said. “I thought the guys did a tremendous job of doing that.”
Harrell opened the flood gates for the Seawolves about seven minutes into the game with a snipe from about 10 yards out to give Stony Brook a 1-0 lead.
The Seawolves scored four more unanswered goals in the first half to take a 5-0 lead to the locker room.
In the third quarter, UMBC (1-6, 0-2) picked up some momentum scoring three late goals to end the quarter down 7-3 with some hope on the horizon.
That hope quickly disappeared as Haun scored his third of the game only 28 seconds into the fourth quarter.
“It was kind of a fluky play,” Haun said. “I think that was a good momentum swing.”
Pickel, Jr. followed about a minute later with his second of the game.
The final 10 minutes of the game were essentially dead time, as Pickel, Jr. scored his third of the game to give the Seawolves an insurmountable 11-4 lead.
With Saturday’s victory, the Seawolves picked up an essential victory in America East Conference play to bring themselves within one game of the top of the standings. The Seawolves were selected to finish second in the conference in the preseason polls.
“This is a huge one for us,” Haun said. “We just have to build off it.”
Stony Brook looks to continue their momentum against another America East opponent in Binghamton University next Friday, March 29 at Stony Brook.
“You have to prepare for the team in front of you,” Nagle said. “Because if you don’t come ready, they’re going to beat you.”
Opening faceoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
