Seawolves Fans

Stony Brook, controversially dealt the No. 5 seed, appeared to vent its frustration in an 18-5 blowout of Penn and now will hit the road to play at No. 4 seed Boston College, which demonstrated its depth in a 16-10 win over Princeton — which was bounced from the tournament two days after defeating Syracuse in overtime.

NCAA quarterfinal matchups: Navy at No. 1 Maryland, Northwestern at No. 2 North Carolina, No. 6 Florida at No. 3 James Madison and No. 5 Stony Brook at No. 4 Boston College.

STONY BROOK SUFFOCATES PENN, GETS READY TO HIT ROAD

Spallina has insisted time and again that defense is what has driven the Seawolves to new heights with each passing year of his seven-year tenure. The goals are sometimes flashy, but the defense is often suffocating, and it reaffirmed its dominance Sunday afternoon.

Hosting the second round of the NCAA tournament, fifth-seeded Stony Brook throttled Penn, 18-5, behind Murphy’s nine points (six goals, three assists) and a defense that held the Quakers to just 18 shots.

One of the few zone defenses in the nation, Stony Brook thrives when it’s cutting off passing lanes and playing aggressively. The starting unit of Carolyn Carrera, Mackenzie Burns, Carlee Janelli and Brooke Gubitosi excelled in front of Anna Tesoriero, who made nine saves.

Throw in the first-half defense of Ally Kennedy and Samantha DiSalvo, and the Seawolves held a team riding the high of a 15-14 overtime win over Penn State in the first round Friday night to just two first-half goals.

“I’m fired up about it,” Spallina said. “We did a really good job of making them extremely uncomfortable, and that’s really when our defense is at our best … The biggest thing is making them do what we want them to do as opposed to them dictating where the ball’s going.”

Penn coach Karin Brower Corbett praised Stony Brook, agreeing with the general consensus that Stony Brook was seeded too low.

“As I said before, I think that they should have been a higher seed. I had never seen them live, and they are impressive,” Corbett said. “I think their strength is their shooting. They’re very good shooters, and I think their basic skills are great. They play at a high pace, and they have a lot of threats on the attack. Their defense is obviously good, kept us to not many goals. We were open some on the inside, and we have to catch and finish. I don’t think we did that well today.”

“If you’re going to write our story, it would not be that Stony Brook’s going to be home the whole playoffs,” he said. “There’s going to be some kind of adversity … We’re going to go to BC, but we’ll be back here in two weeks, sitting in the same seats, happy again.”