#12 Elli Masera scored 6 points during Friday's game.
Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
Sophomore midfielder Ellie Masera and junior attacker Kailyn Hart each tallied six points, leading the No. 5 Stony Brook women’s lacrosse program to a 16-4 victory over the Arizona State Sun Devils on April 1 at LaValle Stadium.
Masera recorded a five-spot in the goal column, adding 11 draw controls on the day. Hart had four goals and two assists, leading her squad in the facilitation department.
10 different players recorded an assist on the afternoon, with four different players recording multiple goals. Hart started the scoring as the Seawolves raced out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter.
The home team used a 5-0 run in the second quarter to pull away, establishing a six-goal advantage with 2:45 in the second frame. They went two better in the second half, rattling off the first eight goals.
“You know, Friday night, our team was excited to be out here. We had a lot of Long Island youth teams here and their [Arizona State] assistant is an alum. They brought a lot of intensity early on and we were a little rattled,” said head coach Joe Spallina after the game.
“I didn’t want to call timeout. I wanted to see how they would handle adversity and handle the situation and I thought they did a good job of getting through. Once we got that first goal, it calmed us down. This is the formula for us right now: getting stops defensively and play smart and efficiently on offense. Sometimes that means putting the ball in the corner and living to fight another day. … I’m proud of our kids. We’re playing really good lacrosse. We’ve learned a lot as the season has gone on but we are making major strides,” he added.
#14 Kailyn Hart during last Saturday's game.
Photo courtesy of Stony Brook Athletic
Scoring eight of the first 10 goals, the No. 5 Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team flew ahead at No. 11 Florida and withstood a late run to earn a big road victory, 14-13, over the host Gators on March 5.
Tied up heading into the fourth quarter, Ellie Masera put the Seawolves back ahead by one at 12-11 with her third goal of the game. After the Gators came back and knotted it at 12, Kailyn Hart joined Masera as they went back to back with two goals in a 2:11 span to give Stony Brook the winner and some insurance late.
The two squads split the opening goals, the visiting Seawolves scored five unanswered and seven of the next eight to seize control. Jaden Hampel recorded three points during that stretch, while Masera added the other two of her four goals.
Florida came back, however, scoring the final two of the third and totaling seven in the third to knot the proceedings heading into the fourth. Charlie Campbell made two big saves early in the period, one on an eight-meter attempt with 11:45 to play. 31 seconds later, Siobhan Rafferty gave Stony Brook the lead at 12-11 in a big swing of momentum.
Stony Brook answered Florida’s tying goal with a tally of its own one minute later, and after the Seawolves took the lead, Rafferty forced a turnover that would lead to Masera’s game-winner.
“It’s a great road win against a great team. Florida is a tough place to play and I am super proud of our squad! We showed great toughness being able to absord a huge Florida run and respond in a big way! This is the type of win that helps galvanize a team and I’m happy they get to experience it. We have some things we need to clean up but there is only one way to gain bigger game pressure and it’s being in, and thriving in, those situations,” said head coach Joe Spallina.
Up next, Stony Brook’s stretch of ranked opponents continues on March 10 when they head to No. 6 Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., before returning home the following Sunday against No. 20 Johns Hopkins at LaValle Stadium.
Starting the day with the first six goals, the Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team quickly made its presence felt on Feb. 27 against Ivy League foe Dartmouth.
Siobhan Rafferty had a first-quarter hat trick as part of her five-goal day, and the No. 4 Seawolves were off and running en route to their 20-3 victory in front of 1,040 fans at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium.
Rafferty and Kailyn Hart went back to back inside of 20 seconds to get the offense up and running, and then three goals in a 90 second span, two from Rafferty, made it 6-0 in the first quarter. After Dartmouth got one back a woman up, the Seawolves rattled off five in a row, three of which coming from Hart, to go up 11-1 at the 10:48 mark of the second quarter. Hart also finished the day with a five-spot in the goal column.
Stony Brook pitched a second-half shutout, scoring all eight in the final 30 minutes of action. Molly LaForge and Alexandra Fusco each recorded their first collegiate tallies, with Fusco scoring both in the final frame for the Seawolves. With the win, the Seawolves find a groove ahead of a pair of Top 10 matchups ahead in the next two weeks.
The No. 17 Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team gave its eight seniors something to celebrate about, topping Binghamton at LaValle Stadium, 20-4, on Friday night on Senior Day. The victory marked the team’s seventh in a row and moves the Seawolves to 6-0 in America East play.
“Senior Day is an emotional day so there’s a lot of moving parts with the lineup being different and honoring your seniors and the seniors coming to the reality that it’s the last home game of the regular season and that they don’t have too much time left as far as being a college athlete,” said head coach Joe Spallina.
“We always try to funnel the emotion. I loved the way we responded to the emotion of Senior Day. We came out and were very business-like and we continued the momentum that we’ve had during our winning streak,” he added.
Stony Brook headed into the locker room with a 15-1 lead and didn’t look back en route to the 16-goal victory. Taryn Ohlmiller (Islip) led the offensive attack with seven points from four goals and three assists. Ally Kennedy (North Babylon) was once again big on the offensive attack, recording all of her five goals in the first half as well as an assist.
Kasey Mitchell (Port Jefferson Station) was a standout on her special day, recording a career-high five points from a hat trick and two helpers. All three of her scores came from the free position.
Nicole Bifulco (Huntington) also had a Senior Day to remember, scoring on both shots she took to earn a pair of goals. Keri McCarthy (Hauppauge) also got in on the scoring with her fellow seniors, putting in a highlight-worthy behind-the-back shot in the first half.
Goals also came from Siobhan Rafferty (Long Beach) (2), Rayna Sabella (Mount Sinai), Sarah Pulis (Baldwin) and Nicole Rizzo (Syosset). Goalkeeper Anna Tesoriero (Huntington) got the win in net after recording two saves. Gabrielle Cacciola (Wading River) made a save in the second half.
Kennedy has scored in all 15 games this season and Rafferty has notched at least one point in each contest. Ohlmiller has now moved up to No. 4 in program history in career points (252) and Kennedy is eighth with 189. Mackenzie Burns (West Sayville) led the team in ground balls (4) and also had five draw controls along with McCarthy and Kennedy.
Stony Brook is 16-1 all-time against Binghamton, winning its last nine matchups. The team was Penn State bound, meeting with the Nittany Lions on Tuesday. Results were not available as of press time.
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Stony Brook women's lacrosse head coach Joe Spallina rounds up his team. Photo from Stony Brook University athletics
Joe Spallina has done what many would deem impossible.
In six short years, the Mount Sinai resident and Stony Brook University women’s lacrosse coach has turned the university’s program from a U.S. Lacrosse Magazine RPI-ranked No. 62 team, into the No. 2 team in the country.
“He knows what he’s doing,” said Frankie Caridi, 2014 Stony Brook graduate and former goalkeeper for the Seawolves. “His coaching style, his philosophy and his ideas are allowing them to get to where he wants to bring that program.”
Stony Brook women’s lacrosse coach Joe Spallina talks plays with his Seawolves. Photo from Stony Brook University athletics
Caridi played under Spallina as a freshman at Adelphi University. He had the opportunity to make the move to Stony Brook and encouraged Caridi, now associate head coach for the Adelphi Panthers, to make the move with him during her playing career.
“He was a great coach straight from the beginning,” she said. “Just playing for him at Adelphi that one year was amazing. The fact that he believed in the few of us that went with him that we’d be able to change the program pretty quickly — he sold us.”
Caridi said she was not only sold on making the switch because of his vision of building a national championship caliber team, but because he was honest about what he was looking for from his players and what he thought they could be.
“He shot the truth,” she said. “He’s someone who is able to get the most out of you. He demands you to be the best you can be … every single day. I respected him so much as a coach, because he respects us as players.”
Her first conversation with him when being recruited to play for Adelphi was about if she wanted to win a national championship and be an All-American.
“He told me the opportunities that I had, and he let them play out,” she said. “I credit all of it to him.”
Caridi became one of the most prolific goalies in Stony Brook program history. Her .514 career save percentage is tops in the school’s record book, while her 5.91 goals-against average is the best among any goalie with at least 1,500 minutes played.
Stony Brook women’s lacrosse head coach Joe Spallina speaks with attack Kylie Ohlmiller. Photo from Stony Brook University athletics
The East Northport native won two America East championships and qualified for two NCAA tournaments, earning International Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association Third-Team All-American status in 2014. She was also named the Lacrosse Magazine and ILWomen.com Goalie of the Year, picked as the America East Defensive Player of the Year and nominee for the Tewaaraton Award, given to the most outstanding American lacrosse player.
Current Stony Brook attack and soon-to-be senior Kylie Ohlmiller also bought what Spallina was selling.
“He told me I could live out my dreams here,” she said. “He told me I could win a national championship in my time here, I’ll be the face of women’s lacrosse and on the cover of magazines. And it’s all happening now. He painted my dream in my head for me and has been making it all possible.”
She agreed with Caridi that he’s been able to shape the athletes to get the program to where it is today.
“I think if I were to go anywhere else, and a lot of my teammates would say the same thing, that we might not be the level of lacrosse players that we are or even the people that we are,” Ohlmiller said. “We want to give our fans — all the little girls who play lacrosse — the dream of coming to Division I lacrosse games and watching a good, Top 5 Division I program play and compete for a national championship.”
“He’s someone who is able to get the most out of you. He demands you to be the best you can be … every single day.”
— Frankie Caridi
The Islip resident said she wants to be a coach one day, and Spallina is the inspiration.
“He’s able to be stern and be authoritative, but at the same time he can throw a joke in there like he’s one of your best friends,” she said. “He’s able to make it fun, and that’s ultimately the reason we play. It’s to have fun and win.”
He and Ohlmiller were big proponents in recruiting her younger sister Taryn, who will be a sophomore in the upcoming school year. As the leading scorers on the team, the two are referred to by their head coach as a couple of the “big dogs” on the team. Kylie Ohlmiller’s 164 points shattered the previous Division I record of 148. Her 86 assists are also a new DI record. She was American East Offensive Player of the Year, was named a Tewaaraton finalist, also an IWLCA ILWomen Attacker of the Year. Her younger sister led all Division I freshmen and ranked seventh in the nation with 98 points last season. The attacker was named America East Rookie of the Year and an IWLCA All-American.
“Once you’re one of his big dogs he wants to be closer to you,” Taryn Ohlmiller said. “He does one-on-one workouts with us, he gets you out there early, doing shooting drills. He cares about you as an individual as much as he cares about the team.”
Stony Brook women’s lacrosse head coach Joe Spallina walks the sideline during a game. Photo from Stony Brook University athletics
The team-first mentality that the Ohlmillers and the Seawolves have bought into under Spallina, who is also the head coach of the Long Island Lizards, propelled Stony Brook to new heights in 2017, as the Seawolves went 20-2 and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals – all new high-water marks in program history. The team broke Division I single-season records for assists (222) and points (576) in 2017 while leading the nation in scoring defense (7.27) and scoring margin (8.82).
For his leadership, in turning the program around and becoming the winningest coach in program history, Spallina has been named America East Coach of the Year in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2017, and was named IWLCA Coach of the Year for the Mid-Atlantic Region following this season. He also garnered several coach of the year honors with the Lizards.
“He deserves all of the recognition — he deserves the world and so much more,” Kylie Ohlmiller said of her head coach. “Last year we were ranked second in the nation behind No. 1 undefeated University of Maryland, and that’s just in a couple of years — it takes decades for some coaches to do. He’s doing what a lot of coaches can’t or haven’t done, and it’s really cool to see. It’s insane how he’s flipped the culture of Stony Brook athletics.”
