Crowley (four goals) helps lead SBU back

Rick Sowell had been using the word "scuffling" to describe his Stony Brook team. It had lost two in a row, slid down the men's lacrosse rankings as if the coaches' poll were a fire pole and hadn't held a second-half lead in 11 days.

"We practiced hard, we did a lot of the things teams do Monday through Friday, and for some reason, Saturday we would just get out on the field and fall apart," he said. "As a result, I think our confidence was shaken."

The first half of Saturday's home game against Bryant did little to snap the Seawolves out of that funk. They fell behind 4-1 and still trailed by two goals late in the second quarter.

Stony Brook was in search of someone to turn things around.

Who better than the school's all-time leading scorer?

Kevin Crowley scored a morale-boosting goal with one second left in the second quarter off a pass from Robbie Campbell, then had a hand in the next three Stony Brook goals as the Seawolves seemed to straighten themselves out with a 13-6 win.

"We needed someone to put us on their back and get this done, and Kevin Crowley certainly proved why he's a Tewaaraton finalist from a year ago," Sowell said. "I said at halftime, 'We're just going to put this in the hands of our best player to make plays.' And he did just that."

Crowley finished with four goals and an assist and the Stony Brook defense did not allow an even-strength goal in the final 42 minutes. "I guess the scuffling slowly went away as we got more confidence, and momentum was on our side," Crowley said. "There's definitely a better energy in the locker room."

Crowley's goal at the end of the first half may have been the most important -- defenseman Kyle Moeller described it as "huge'' -- but his goal that gave Stony Brook (4-3) its first lead of the game was perhaps the most impressive. From 15 yards out, he fired a shot that Bryant goalie Jameson Love appeared to stop, but the momentum from the blast pushed Love's stick backward, crossing the plane of the goal over his shoulder.

SBU scored seven goals in the third to go ahead 10-5, its most productive quarter of the year. Timmy Trenkle and Brett Drost each scored twice and Tom Compitello had a goal and three assists. Max Weisenberg (Long Beach) had two goals for Bryant (3-5).

Of course, this game will have little actual impact on Stony Brook's postseason aspirations. The Seawolves begin their America East slate Friday at home against UMBC, a string that will determine how they spend their May. But just as the goal before halftime sparked a third-quarter run, Stony Brook is counting on this win to carry them forward.

There's also precedent. On the eve of conference play last year, the Seawolves had lost back-to-back games against Denver and Cornell before pulling out a win at Bryant. They went on to the NCAA quarterfinals before losing to Virginia by a goal.

That clash with the Cavaliers -- and the one-goal overtime loss to Virginia that opened this season and boosted the reputation of the program -- seemed pretty distant early in the game.

"To fight and scratch and claw, especially when we got down 4-1 and all of a sudden it's looking like 'here we go again,' " Sowell said. "This hopefully gives us a good momentum boost, a confidence boost. We're excited now, with some renewed spirit."