The No. 1 Stanford women’s water polo team continued its impressive season last weekend, winning its first two games over No. 9 San Diego State and No. 11 Long Beach State. The Cardinal (15-0, 1-0 MPSF) beat the Aztecs 12-4 and defeated Long Beach State 11-3.
After undefeated performances in the Michigan Kickoff and Stanford and UCI Invitationals, Stanford opened up its Mountain Pacific Sports Federation season against San Diego State (9-7, 0-2) on Saturday and kept its momentum going.
On the offensive end, the Cardinal continued using a diversified attack as seven different players scored. The strong goalie play by Aztec junior Kelly Campoli, who tallied 12 saves, was not strong enough to answer Stanford’s offense.
Sophomore two-meter Annika Dries led the Stanford attack with three goals, which led all scorers in the game. Sophomores drivers Vee Dunlevie and Victoria Kennedy, along with junior two-meter Melissa Seidemann, contributed with a pair of goals each. Junior drivers Cassie Churnside and Alyssa Lo joined senior driver Kim Krueger in posting one goal apiece.
In addition to excellent offensive play, the team held its opponent under five goals for the seventh-time this season with senior goalie Amber Oland recording seven saves.
The following day, Stanford looked for its 15th victory of the season against non-conference opponent Long Beach State (4-9). After one quarter of play, the Card found itself in unfamiliar territory, down 1-0 after a goal by 49er Julia Garyfallou. However, Stanford quickly answered in the next period with four goals from four different players: Dries, freshmen driver Kaley Dodson, sophomore driver Jillian Garton and junior driver Pallavi Menon.
Stanford held a 4-2 lead going into halftime and never looked back. Despite a ten-save effort by senior goalie Kristen Stragier of Long Beach State, the Card went on a 7-1 run to win 11-3 against the 49ers.
Lo led the Card with a hat-trick. In addition, Dries and Garton each had a pair of goals in the win.
With its performance over the weekend, Stanford has now scored ten or more goals 14 times this season. The only time Stanford didn’t score 10 goals was in a 9-6 win over defending NCAA champion and second-ranked USC. In addition, 11 out of 15 victories have come by a margin of eight goals or more. Dries is now first on the team with 26 goals.
The team will have this weekend off before continuing its MPSF season against Arizona State in Tempe on Saturday, March 19. The next scheduled home game for Stanford will be on March 26 against UCLA.