In the first 17 minutes during Wednesday’s 16-9 win over No. 19 Stony Brook, Florida lifted its foot off the petal and turned on cruise control.
The Gators (4-0) went on a 10-1 run to outplay the Seawolves in every statistical category.
“I thought we were able to start out really strong,” coach Amanda O’Leary said. “I thought we came out offensively and were clicking.”
The Gators had 12 shots to the Seawolves’ 3. Florida also outperformed Stony Brook in the draw, winning 8 to 1 in that 17-minute span.
The 18th minute is when Florida skidded off its cruise course.
Seawolves' senior Claire Petersen grabbed the second goal of the game for Stony Brok and started a 4-0 run going into halftime.
“It felt a lot closer than 10-5,” O’Leary said.
From the 12:29 mark on to half, the Seawolves were the ones that led the Gators in shots taken and draw controls, 6-3 and 3-2 respectively.
The team, overall, referred to it as a lull.
O’Leary spoke to her team in the locker room and told her team to relax and to get back on track.
“We just said that offensively we needed to calm down,” O'Leary said. “We were getting calls; we had some eight-meter opportunities and just didn’t finish. It was a matter of finishing.”
The Gators picked up some momentum at the beginning of the second half with a quick, free-position shot goal by sophomore Shannon Gilroy, but they still weren’t as sharp as they wanted to be.
At the 19:37 mark in the second half, O’Leary had to call a timeout because Stony Brook brought the score to 12-8 – the closest it had been since early in the first half.
O’Leary then made a tactical switch at goalkeeper to swing the momentum back in Florida’s favor, pulling All-American senior Mikey Meagher for freshman Mary-Sean Wilcox.
Wilcox made five saves that helped the Gators go on a 4-1 run in the waning minutes of the match.
Even with the crucial run at the end, the Gators overall stats were not ones to boast about since that 12:29 mark in the first half.
Stony Brook led Florida in shots, 19-15, and groundballs, 11-9, since that point.
Improving its second half performance is something Florida will try to fix as they take on UC Davis and UAlbany this weekend at home.
“Hitting that lull… We have to fix that,” O’Leary said. “We can find ourselves in a deep deficit if we get into that again.
