Bring on Niagara! The Stony Brook Women's lacrosse team will now continue their quest for a championship against Niagara. The No. 14 SeaWolves will battle in the MAAC Championship in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament in Syracuse, N.Y. Their first round game will begin on Friday, May 10, at 2 p.m.
This will be the first time in history that the Niagara Purple Eagles and Stony Brook will meet up. The Purple Eagles earned the automatic qualifier to the NCAA Tournament after defeating No. 22 Fairfield, 11-10, to clinch their first-ever MAAC Championship.
Head Coach Joe Spallina made sure to enjoy the moment. He said "you never want to take these moments for granted, when you see your name pop up there, punching your ticket to the NCAA tournament, a place that we have been to a lot as a program, so what an opportunity."
The SeaWolves clinched their 11th consecutive berth in the NCAA Tournament after winning the 2024 CAA Championship on Saturday afternoon when they defeated Drexel, 9-6, at LaValle Stadium. The win marked Stony Brook's 10th conference championship title (two CAA, eight America East) and ninth at home inside LaValle Stadium.
The SeaWolves are led by All-Championship Team standouts senior midfielder Ellie Maserar, graduate midfielder Charlotte Verhulst, senior attack Kailyn Hart, and senior defender Clare Levy, with Masera taking home the Most Outstanding Performer honor. All of them were key parts of their clinching win this weekend where they scored 6 unanswered goals to storm from behind to win.
Stony Brook will have their trophy case filled after this year. Besides those All Championship Team honors they also had Masera being named the Midfielder of the Year, while head coach Joe Spallina was named the Coach of the Year. In addition, Masera, Hart, graduate attack Alex Finn and junior defender Avery Hines were all selected to the All-CAA First Team. Levy, senior midfielder Jaden Hampel, and Verhulst earned second team honors, while freshman midfielder Isabella Caporuscio was selected to the CAA All-Rookie Team.
Coach Spallina made sure to point out how close this group of women are to each other saying "for us we are just excited for the opportunity to just earn more time together. But it's more than just spending time in a group. We have a special group of women that all genuinely love each other."
Niagra will now try and crack this star laden lineup. The Stony Brook offense ranks first in the nation in assists per game (9.3) and second in points per game (25.1). In addition, Stony Brook is 10th in the nation in scoring offense with 15.7 goals per game. The SeaWolves are third in the nation in scoring margin (+8.0) and have the second-best scoring defense in the NCAA as they are holding teams to just 7.8 goals per game.
The winner of the first round match up between the SeaWolves and Niagra will face No. 3 seeded Syracuse on Sunday, May 12.