STONY BROOK, N.Y. – Lehigh fell behind early and fought its way back, but in the end the Mountain Hawks could not complete the comeback, falling to Stony Brook 10-9 at Lavelle Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Seniors Steve Marino, Jeff Wiener, Alec Hooff and David Gaunt all scored twice for the Brown and White who falls to 2-5 on the season. The Seawolves improve to 4-1 and were led on offense by Ryan Hughes and Larry Cerasi with three goals apiece.
Stony Brook jumped on the scoreboard first when Larry Cerasi netted a score at the 12:26 mark of the opening quarter, and Ryan Hughes then made it 2-0 in favor of the home team off of a feed from Cerasi just 31 seconds later. Lehigh got on the board for the first time when Jeff Wiener took a feed from classmate Steve Marino and sliced the Mountain Hawk’s deficit in half at the 9:53 mark of the opening quarter. Hughes and Robert Trenkle then put the Seawolves in front 4-1 with back-to-back goals that spanned the final seconds of the first quarter and opening minutes of the second.
Wiener then sliced the deficit in half again with his second goal of the afternoon at the 9:01 clip of the second, and senior Alec Hooff brought the Brown and White to within one with a score of his own at the 8:20 mark of the quarter. Cerasi put Stony Brook in front 5-3 when he scored with 6:47 remaining in the half, but David Gaunt made it a one-goal game when he netted a score of his own at the three-minute mark. That was all the scoring for the opening half as the teams retired to halftime with Lehigh trailing 5-4.
Rhys Hughes put the home team in front 6-4 at the 12:22 mark of the third, and Bo Tripoli got on the board when he scored with 3:19 to go in the quarter, making the score 7-4 in favor of the Seawolves. The score would remain that way as the teams headed for the final 15 minutes of play.
Hooff fed Marino for his first score of the day and Lehigh pulled within two at 7-5 with 13:39 remaining. Gaunt then netted his second goal of the afternoon and with 13:00 to go the Mountain Hawks had new life, down just one at 7-6. Hughes scored on an EMO for the Seawolves to give the home team some breathing room, but Matt Diehl took a pass from Ricky Cornetta and found the back of the net to bring Lehigh to within one again at 8-7 with 8:00 left to go. Tripoli scored again though with 4:33 remaining and the Mountain Hawks were back down by two scores at 9-7.
Cerasi made it a three-goal game when he scored with 3:38 to go, but Lehigh refused to go away as Hooff and Marino both scored in the final minutes to bring the Mountain Hawks to within one score with 43 ticks to go. That was as close as they would get however, as Lehigh dropped its third straight to a top-20 team.
Lehigh out shot its opponent 33-28 for the game, and scooped up 21 ground balls, led by Mike Tabb’s four. The Mountain Hawks won 11-of-23 face offs and forced 16 Seawolvf turnovers. In goal for Lehigh, Eric Spirko sent back ten Stony Brook shots, while Brendan Callahan recorded 13 saves for the home team.
Lehigh returns to action on Friday, March 30 when the Mountain Hawks welcome archrival Lafayette to the Ulrich Sports Complex. Game time is set for 7:00 and all of the action can be seen and heard live on lehighsports.com.
