No. 15 Colorado was defeated by No. 18 Stony Brook, 9-7, in a women’s lacrosse game at LaValle Stadium on Thursday. Both teams’ defenses played strongly throughout the match, with Stony Brook holding off Colorado’s late comeback attempt.
Head coach Ann Elliott Whidden commented after the loss, “It wasn’t our best day, unfortunately. We talk about playing aggressively and disciplined, and we lacked some discipline at times. There’s only so much you can control, and we have to be able to adjust to the way the game is going, and we didn’t do a great job of that.”
Stony Brook’s Isabella Caporuscio led her team with three goals and one assist. Keira Martin scored twice for the Seawolves, including the decisive goal in the third quarter.
Whidden acknowledged her team’s effort to stay competitive: “I’m proud of the way they [the team] responded. I thought that game could have slipped away, and we could have lost by 10, but we fought back. We got some stops. We won a couple draw controls and made a couple of plays on the offensive end to give ourselves a chance down to the end.”
For Colorado (3-1), Maddie Shoup, Teagan Ryan, and Lily Assini each scored two goals while Rowan Edson added another score for her second consecutive game.
Goalkeeper Elena Oh matched her career high with 12 saves during the contest. Whidden highlighted Oh’s performance: “I think the experience Elena got last year has really carried over to this year. It’s awesome to have someone back there that we have confidence in and can help us. Being able to limit the people in scoring is a big factor of just being able to have every layer of that defense step up and make a play, whether that’s the first person, the second person or back in goal, and she’s been doing a great job.”
Stony Brook (3-0) outshot Colorado both overall (25-22) and on target (21-14). Both teams collected 13 groundballs each; however, Colorado committed one more turnover than Stony Brook (14-13). The Seawolves also had an advantage in draw controls with an 11-7 margin.
The match began with Martin scoring for Stony Brook before Shoup equalized for Colorado later in the first quarter. In the second quarter Ryan gave Colorado its only lead before Stony Brook regained momentum through scores from Reese Hjertaas and Caporuscio.
A pivotal moment occurred when Stony Brook went on a five-goal run spanning late in the second quarter into early in the fourth quarter—a stretch during which Colorado picked up five cards leading them to play shorthanded multiple times.
“At the end of the day, when you’re down however many we were going into that last little chunk, we had to make plays and give ourselves a chance,” Whidden continued. “And they were able to do that.”
Despite trailing by five entering part of the final period, Colorado reduced Stony Brook’s lead as Assini scored again followed by goals from Edson and Shoup.
Whidden noted challenges faced during their comeback: “I think the toughest part for us during the climb back was us,” Whidden explained. “[We had] Turnovers, we had missed opportunities, and honestly, the fouls. It’s really hard to build momentum when you’re playing a player down. At the end of the day, we found a little bit of a way to do that in part of the fourth quarter, but it’s really tough.”
Colorado was unable to convert any opportunities into goals during their final possessions.
The Buffaloes will continue their New York road trip against No. 22 Army on Sunday morning at 10 a.m Mountain Time.
Other notes from Thursday’s game include Assini extending her points streaks—now reaching points in 20 straight games—and scoring in eleven consecutive matches; she now has 47 career goals while Shoup extended her own goal streaks as well.
