Virginia Beach, Va. – Three different players found the back of the cage as the St. Mary's College of Maryland field hockey team posted a 3-1 season-opening victory over the host Virginia Wesleyan College Marlins Tuesday afternoon.

The Seahawks (1-0) played the role of spoiler as Virginia Wesleyan's (0-1) inaugural game on its new turf field, Birdsong Field, ended in a Marlin loss.

It was a scoreless first half as first-year goalkeeper Skye Swain (Newport News, Va./Warwick) denied three of St. Mary's eight shots in the first 35 minutes while the Marlins were unable to get a shot off.

Junior forward Brady Wolf (Reisterstown, Md./McDonogh) started off the scoring in the second half as Wolf finished off a cross from senior captain Nina Collins (Clarksville, Md./River Hill) at 52:36. Sophomore midfielder Megan Moore (Gambrills, Md./Arundel) followed suit 10 minutes later with her first career goal off a deflection.

Junior midfielder Alli Szymanski (Easton, Md./Easton) completed the St. Mary's hat trick at 68:36 as Szymanski put back in the rebound off of Swain's pads.

Virginia Wesleyan avoided the shutout on the new turf as junior captain Asiah Allen (St. Louis, Mo./Pattonville) deflected in fellow captain Sam Jackson's (Manassas, Va./Osburn) feed with 47 seconds left in the game.

St. Mary's outshot the Marlins, 22-3, and owned a 5-2 margin in penalty corners. 

Sophomore Alyssa Thompson (Arnold, Md./Broadneck) made just one stop for the Seahawks in her first career start while Swain finished with 11 saves on the day.

The Seahawks return to action this weekend, September 5-6, at the University of Mary Washington Tournament in Fredericksburg, Virginia. St. Mary's takes on Centre College on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. before taking on DePauw University, who received votes in the NFHCA Division III Preseason Poll, on Sunday at 10:00 a.m.

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