A scorching 10-1 run to open the game and some staunch second-half
work by freshman goalkeeper Mary-Sean Wilcox were enough to propel No. 3
Florida to a 16-9 win over No. 18 Stony Brook on Wednesday in the
Gators' home opener at Donald R. Dizney Stadium.
“We hit a lull,”
head coach Amanda O'Leary said. “I thought we started out really strong.
I thought we came out and offensively everything was clicking. I
thought defensively we gave up some quick goals, which is a little
uncharacteristic of us. But other than that, hitting that lull, we have
to fix that because we could find ourselves in a deep deficit if we go
into that again.”
UF (4-0) opened the game with a rapid-fire
attack and started the scoring early with senior midfielder Brittany
Dashiell's free position goal in the game's first minute.
Sophomore
Nora Barry and seniors Kitty Cullen, Ashley Bruns and Gabi Weigand
followed with unassisted goals that staked UF to a 5-0 lead less than
eight minutes into the game.
“We watched film on them, so we knew
they were going to pressure out on us,” Dashiell said. “We went over our
game plan in practice and I think we just really stuck to it well, and
we had a great shooting percentage, which really helped.”
Stony
Brook's Demmianne Cook got her team on the board with 21:04 left before
halftime, but the Gators responded with another 5-0 run to go up 10-1
with 12:29 remaining.
But just when it looked like UF might be on
its way to a rout, the Seawolves (1-1) came alive, scoring the last four
goals of the half to go to the locker room trailing only 10-5.
“It felt a lot closer than 10-5,” O'Leary said.
Goals
from senior Shannon Gilroy and Dashiell, sandwiched around another goal
by Stony Brook's Cook, gave Florida a 12-6 lead four minutes into the
second half, but again the Seawolves proved resilient, holding UF
scoreless for more than nine minutes while closing to within 12-8 on a
pair of free position goals by Amber Kupres and Janine Hiller, the
latter a transfer from Florida.
With 19:37 still to play, O'Leary
called a timeout and pulled senior goalie Mikey Meagher, inserting
Wilcox, who had only played in one game for eight minutes.
Moments
later, Stony Brook's Emily Mercer found an open lane through the middle
of the UF defense with a chance to pull the Seawolves within three, but
Wilcox blocked her shot.
Wilcox would go on to make four more
saves, including stopping a couple of point-blank free position shots,
blanking the Seawolves the rest of the way until allowing a meaningless
goal to Stony Brook's Claire Petersen on a free position shot, her
team-leading third goal of the game, with 21 seconds left to play.
By then, UF, which connected on 16-of-29 shots, had put four more goals up to seal the decision.
“Mary-Sean
is just such a great option to have, and you saw why,” O'Leary said.
“She can step in there, and for her to come into a game like this where
the momentum was certainly not in our favor and make some huge saves
says a lot about her. Our defense is really comfortable playing in front
of her.”
Dashiell and Gilroy led the Gators with four goals apiece, while Cullen had three goals and a team-high two assists.
