COLLEGE PARK, Md. — With seven points for Stony Brook in its 13-12 loss to top-seeded Maryland on Saturday, 5-foot-3 junior attacker Kylie Ohlmiller raised her NCAA Division I women’s single-season points record to 164 and, with her second assist, set the D-I single-season assists record, previously held by Northwsetern’s Hannah Nielsen, who had 83 helpers in 2009. Ohlmiller finishes the year with 86 assists — and, with her 2017 resume, a strong case to take home the Tewaaraton Award, given to the nation’s top player.

In an intense quarterfinal bout, she went head-to-head with fellow finalist, Maryland defender Nadine Hadnagy, and led Stony Brook’s offense to 12 goals against a unit that had allowed that number only five times this season. After the game, Stony Brook coach Joe Spallina compared Ohlmiller’s skill set — which, in no particular order, includes tremendous field vision, quickness, bounce, and creativity scoring or passing — to that of Albany’s Connor Fields, who is a finalist for the men’s Tewaaraton Award. Ohlmiller also played volleyball and basketball at Islip (N.Y.) High.

At one point in the first half, on an endline restart, Spallina was midway through yelling offensive instructions, when he stopped just as Ohlmiller threw a backside pass to an uncovered Dorrien Van Dyke, who gave the Seawolves a 5-2 lead. That came a few minutes after Ohlmiller slung in sidearm goal from the ground. Hall of Famer Jen Adams, whose single-season points record Ohlmiller broke and who praised her over social media for highlight-reel goals this year, was in the crowd to see the latest performance.

“She’s the best player in the women’s game, period,” Spallina said of Ohlmiller. “People can disagree with it. To me, proof is in the pudding. You can’t do more than she’s done, against everybody. She actually had some lower-scoring games against teams that aren’t as competitive. She had seven points today. When they played her with the dodge, she fed and when they played her to feed, she dodged. She deserves the Tewaaraton. It’s an absolute no-brainer.”

“There’s a lot of great players,” he said. “Can any of those other finalists come on to our team and do what she’s done for us? I don’t know that. I know what she means to us. She’s at another level. She has seven points with the top defender in the country on her and a first-team All-American goalie and a first-team All-American defender. There’s not much more that that kid can do.”

Maryland coach Cathy Reese said Ohlmiller was impressive.

“Kylie’s got great field vision and she showed that today,” she said. “Not only is she a great shooter, but I think that what makes her so talented is the fact that she can see open people and hit those feeds. Giver her a lot of credit. She played really well today and exploited some holes in our defense for sure.”

The Bandwagon is Closed

Stony Brook ends its best season in program history at 20-2. Ohlmiller will return for a senior season, along with her younger sister, Taryn, a freshman who eclipsed 100 points for the season in the quarterfinal loss. Courtney Murphy, a 100-goal scorer in 2016 who missed most of this year with a torn ACL, projects to complete the Seawolves starting attack next year.

Spallina said he thought the performance against Maryland showed Stony Brook is an elite program that deserved at least its eight seed for the tournament, while also alluding that the program will continue to play the underdog “prove people wrong” card into next year.

“We’re built to last,” Spallina said. “We just went toe-to-toe with the best program in women’s lacrosse and we’re not going anywhere. Maybe now there’s more believers, but we don’t want them. Stay off the bandwagon, we’re coming for you next year.”

Fair or Foul?

Spallina was none too pleased with what he felt was an unfair discrepancy in fouls. The Seawolves were whistled for 58 fouls, compared to 15 for Maryland, which helped lead to 11 free-position shots for Maryland. The Terps converted just two of those shots, and Stony Brook failed on all three of its free position shots.

“I’m not going to talk about the fact that they had five cards and we had none,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about the fact that we had 58 fouls and they had 15. I don’t want to talk about the fact that they had 732 free-positions and we only had three. I’d rather not talk about any of that. I think it’d be really cool if one of you guys talked about that. I think it would be a nice angle…but I want to talk about the fact that my kids played their hearts out.”

Reese was asked about the numbers too. “When you foul, you get called for fouls,” she said, and later offered more, suggested a good amount resulted from Stony Brook’s backer zone defense. “The majority of their fouls are 3-second [violations]. I think it’s hard, when you look at the stat sheet and think they fouled that much. When there’s 25 3-seconds called a game, it’s definitely going to run up your fouls. That’s a result of them packing it in [the zone].”