College Park, Md. -- Playing in its first NCAA Tournament game, the No. 10/9 Stony Brook University women's lacrosse team defeated Towson, 8-6, to advance to the second round where the Seawolves will face No. 1 Maryland at noon on Sunday.
Stony Brook is the third team in America East history to win an NCAA game, joining Albany and Boston University. It is the fourth overall win for the conference in the NCAA Championship.
Goalkeeper Frankie Caridi made seven stops while Amber Kupres netted a hat trick and Janine Hillier tallied two goals and one assist as Stony Brook won its 12th-straight game and improved to 17-2 on the season.
America East Co-Player of the Year, Demmianne Cook, added two goals, three draw controls and five ground balls and Claire Petersen had five assists.
Frankie Caridi made seven stops, while Amber Kupres netted a hat trick and Janine Hillier tallied two goals and one assist as Stony Brook won its 12th-straight game and improved to 17-2 on the season.
Kelsea Donnelly stopped eight shots for Towson (10-9).
The two squads engaged in a defensive battle in the first half, yielding just two goals apiece.
In the second stanza, Cook netted an unassisted goal less than four minutes into the frame to give Stony Brook the lead, 3-2. Kupres followed with a goal on a feed from Hillier as the Seawolves went up 4-2 with 23:29 to play.
Jackie LaMonica closed the gap to one with a tally from Ashleigh Rohrback, but Hillier and Michelle Rubino scored the next two, both unassisted, to put Stony Brook up three, 6-3, at 15:38.
Towson hung around as Sarah Maloof got a shot by Caridi with 13:56 remaining. Two minutes later, Hillier pushed the lead back to three on a free position shot.
Petersen found Kupres on the doorstep at 8:13, and the sophomore midfielder scored to give the Seawolves a four-goal advantage, 8-4.
Ashley Waldron scored the final two goals of the game for Towson, but the Seawolves defense remained solid to ice the team's first-ever NCAA win.
The eight goals are the fewest Stony Brook has scored in a win, besting its previous mark of nine against Albany on March 30.
Cook now has 88 goals on the season and 156 during her remarkable career. Her longtime teammate, Petersen, pushed her career assist total to 104 and season assist number to 45, the second-most all-time in SBU single-season history.
The four goals the two teams tallied in the first half is the fourth-fewest in a half during a first or second round game in NCAA history. Dartmouth and Princeton combined for four goals in the first half in the 2004 Quarterfinals, and UMass and Yale posted four total scores in the 2nd half of a 1984 first-round contest.
Stony Brook will face top-seeded, No. 1/1 Maryland Sunday at noon in College Park, Md. The Seawolves fell to Maryland in a close, 8-3, decision March 17th. They have not lost since.