The season of the Stony Brook women’s soccer team is changing, but not for the better.
Stony Brook’s season was looking promising after four straight wins, but three straight losses have tainted that streak, including a 4-1 blowout loss on the road to the Maine Black Bears on Sunday, Oct. 10.
On that gloomy day in Orono, the Seawolves appeared to be the favorites, as the Black Bears were 0-4 in conference play and the Seawolves were picked to finish first in the America East preseason poll. Nobody could have predicted what Maine would do to Stony Brook’s defense, given that they had not scored a single goal in their previous four games.
Maine came out strong at the start of the game, with senior forward Saylor Clark getting into the middle of the defense to get off an open shot that Stony Brook freshman goalkeeper Nicolette Pasquarella denied. Maine capitalized on Pasquarella’s failure to corral the ball as freshman forward Abby Kraemer fired it into the back of the net only 37 seconds into the game.
Stony Brook was down, but not out. Stony Brook would be awarded a free kick from midfield only two minutes later, and graduate forward Alyssa Francese would score with a header. This moved Francese into second place on Stony Brook’s all-time scoring chart, which was intended to provide the Seawolves with the boost they needed.
This clash seemed destined to be a scrap after two goals were scored in the first three minutes of play.
Maine quickly retaliated when Clark passed the ball to senior forward Emma Donovan, who raced past the defense and beat the goalkeeper in the seventh minute.
Maine’s goal-scoring spree continued when Kraemer set up sophomore forward Tegan Morrison for her first goal of the season. The game appeared to be significantly more lopsided than expected.
They completed the thrashing when Kraemer, who was clearly the star of the show, scored her second goal of the game in the 65th minute off a feed from junior midfielder Olivia Chalifoux.
Over the course of the 90 minutes, Stony Brook fired nine efforts on goal, but just one got past senior goalkeeper Kira Kutzinski, who made a career-high eight saves. In this goalie showdown, Pasquarella was outclassed, making only two saves.
Maine’s 4-3-3 formation was too much for Stony Brook’s defense to handle, and they’ll have to pick it up if they want to save their season.
The Seawolves (5-7-1, 2-3 AE) will face the Binghamton Bearcats on Thursday, Oct. 14, at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium, and must rapidly turn things around.
Kenny Spurrell
Kenny Spurrell is an assistant sports editor of The Statesman. He is a junior English major and journalism minor at Stony Brook University. He began covering sports for The Statesman during the Fall 2021 semester. Since then, he has covered men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse and football. His passion for sports derives from his many years of playing basketball, football and baseball. He is a Long Island native from Selden, N.Y. and has dreams of becoming a sports journalist.
