On Sunday afternoon, the Boston College women’s lacrosse team hosted the Stony Brook Seawolves for the second round of the 2025 NCAA tournament. After BC received a first-round bye and Stony Brook defeated Loyola Maryland earlier in the weekend, the two teams faced off at Alumni Stadium on a beautiful Mother’s Day afternoon. The Eagles had some difficulties but eventually handled the Seawolves, emerging from the contest with a 10-7 win.
The scoring got started early for BC when Stony Brook goalie Natalia Altebrando came up the field and hit her pass blocked by Emma LoPinto, resulting in an easy breakaway goal. Then with a pair of disallowed goals by Stony Brook and dominance from BC on the draw controls, it wasn’t long before the Eagles held a strong 5-0 lead after the first quarter.
But BC fell victim to some hard fought ground balls that Stony Brook was able to wrestle away in the 2nd quarter, which allowed them to keep possession away and start to crawl back. SBU brought it to 6-2 before a buzzer-beating free position goal for BC gave them a 7-2 halftime lead. Despite the Seawolves attempts to muck things up and slow the game down, they couldn’t score at a rate to catch up.
That changed in the second half. Stony Brook’s defense stepped up and stifled BC’s attackers while finding more opportunities of their own on the other end. The 7-2 BC lead shrunk to 8-6 while the Eagles attackers struggled to finesse their way through a game that was becoming more physical as it went on. BC’s defense, while playing well, couldn’t pick up ground balls on their own end when they needed them and let SBU extend possessions. The physicality and extra opportunities helped the Seawolves claw back into the game. But thanks to an epic Shea Dolce kick save, the Eagles still held a two goal lead going into the final minutes.
The BC attack continued to struggle in the fourth quarter, often failing even to get a shot attempt while SBU played them aggressively close and forced turnovers. BC struggled to get penetration to punish them for their forward defense until finally Rachel Clark completed her hat trick with just over four minutes remaining to give the Eagles some breathing room.
But Clark couldn’t convert on her next free position goal and Stony Brook came back the other way with a goal with two minutes left to cut the BC lead to 9-7. The next draw control was crucial and BC’s Shea Baker positioned herself perfectly to win it, forcing SBU to play for a turnover on the ensuing possession. They couldn’t force one and Rachel Clark shot on an empty-net to extend BC’s lead to 10-7 with under a minute to play, the lead that they rode until the end of the game.
BC will play the next round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday May 14.