Burlington, Vt. - The Stony Brook men's soccer team scored in the 82nd minute of its match at Vermont to go up 1-0, but the Catamounts scored the equalizer in the 88th minute to force overtime and then scored the game-winner in the 100th minute to come away with a 2-1 victory over the Seawolves. The loss denied SB its first America East regular season championship since 2005.

Coach Ryan Anatol's Reaction
"I thought we battled, and I thought the guys worked hard. We got the goal we needed, but you can't give up a goal with two minutes on the clock and expect to win. We did enough to win but we didn't close it out."

Goal Recaps

• In the 82nd minute, following a nice sequence of passes that pushed the ball into the offensive zone, senior Berian Gobeil Cruz (Montreal, Quebec) went around the horn to parallel to the net down the width of the field to senior Leonardo Fernandes (North Babylon, N.Y.), who then slipped a pass through defenders to an open freshman Martin Giordano (Weston, Fla.), and the freshman blasted a shot past the UVM goalkeeper from six yards out.
• In the 88th minute, Vermont's Sean Sweeney crossed in a ball into the box and found Zach Paul, who headed in the ball for the equalizer.
• In the 100th minute, Sweeney had a throw in from the far sideline and his throw found open space. The bouncing ball landed near Charlie Defeo, who knocked in the ball past SB senior goalkeeper Stefan Manz (Bronx, N.Y.) to secure the victory.

The Numbers Game

• Fernandes is now two points of tying Tim Cusack (1978-81) for first all-time in program history in career points.
• Giordano's third goal of the season matches him with Alejandro Fritz (Budapest, Hungary) for most freshman goals on the team.
• Gobeil Cruz now has 51 points in his SB career, ninth best in program history, third in the program's Div. I history.
• Stony Brook outshot Vermont 11-9 and had more corners, 7-2.

News & Notes

• Stony Brook fell to 1-2-1 in overtime games this season. The team is 3-6-12 in overtime since this senior class came in in 2009.
• The Seawolves are now 6-6-2 all-time vs. Vermont.
• Despite the loss, SB is guaranteed to finish no lower than fourth place for a fourth consecutive season.
• This was the second loss during Anatol's helm that SB has suffered despite scoring the game's first goal. The team is now 17-2-1 in that situation.
• Stony Brook will await its seed in the upcoming America East Championship. A UMBC loss or tie vs. Binghamton will secure the Seawolves the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye. A UMBC win means SB will be the No. 3 seed and host a quarterfinal match on Nov. 3.

Up Next
Although the conference season is over and the America East Championship looms, Stony Brook will focus on a big non-conference finale at West Virginia Tuesday night at 7 p.m. The game will be a contest between a pair of top 50 RPI teams in the nation.

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