The No. 1 Stanford women’s soccer team’s senior class may have helped the squad outscore its opponents 174-17 at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium over the past four years, but the final home game for the four outgoing Stanford players was anything but a breeze.
It took the Cardinal (23-0-1) 93 minutes to overcome a determined Oklahoma State (22-2-2) squad in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament, ending with a sudden-death tap-in from senior forward Lindsay Taylor to propel Stanford to a fourth-straight College Cup appearance with a 2-1 victory.
An inspired—albeit brief—Cardinal effort in overtime came on the heels of an overwhelming late-game push by the No. 2-seed Cowgirls, who knotted the match up in the 69th minute after showing little life early in the match. Surviving five second-half corners by Oklahoma State, Stanford controlled the extra session and ended the game in a hurry.
“I think there was just a lot of confidence in our team and in our teammates, and we really just wanted to play for each other,” Taylor said. “We had a lot of confidence going into the overtime, and we just wanted to take it to them for the whole thing.”
The powerful Cardinal attack looked to have its toughest test of the season against the nation-leading Cowgirl defense, whose .272 goals-against average was the only such mark in the country better than Stanford’s (.344). Regardless, the Cardinal outshot Oklahoma State 14-1 in the first half, forcing four saves from goalkeeper Adrianna French, who also had several leaping efforts to swallow up dangerous crosses in the box.
The floodgates seemed poised to open for Stanford in the 52nd minute when senior midfielder Kristy Zurmuhlen sent a hard strike through a defender’s legs and found the back of the net for her fifth tally of the season. Still battling a right-leg injury she incurred in a second-round win over South Carolina, Zurmuhlen was forced to leave the game for the second time just seven minutes later, hobbling off the field.
“She has great character, and I think it’s fitting that she scores that goal as a senior, because she’s worked so hard throughout her career,” said head coach Paul Ratcliffe. “It was really fitting to see her get it, and it was a fantastic goal for us.”
Having allowed only two shots by the 60th minute, it looked as if the midfielder’s goal would be enough to send Stanford to Kennesaw, Ga., for the Final Four. But the Cardinal struggled without Zurmuhlen, and senior midfielder Sarah Brown got the Cowgirls on the board with a late strike when a Stanford defender slipped near midfield.
Oklahoma State continued to press, and had it not been for several near misses—not to mention a series of foul and offside calls that infuriated the Cowgirls coaching staff and eventually led to a yellow card on the Oklahoma State bench—the Cardinal likely wouldn’t have gotten out of regulation with a tie.
“I don’t know what happened…after we scored, there was a letup,” Ratcliffe said. “I’ve never seen that before. That was the first time. Usually, we get even stronger after we score a goal, so it was a real surprise for me to see that.”
“But I thought at the end they showed tremendous character to be tied and then to come back in the overtime. You saw how fiercely competitive this team is; we went after them.”
Stanford took back the driver’s seat almost instantly in the extra session, perhaps reenergized by the short break after regulation. Junior forward Marjani Hing-Glover sent a rebound soaring just high with the goalie down in the second minute of overtime, and when the Cardinal regained control after the ensuing goal kick, it wasn’t going to miss again.
The sequence began when senior midfielder Teresa Noyola corralled a loose ball near the top of the box and sent it to junior defender Rachel Quon at the right side of the box. Quon then found Taylor swooping in from the left to bury the point-blank opportunity at the 2:40 mark of overtime.
“It was a great buildup play, all I did was tap it in,” Taylor said of her conference-leading 20th goal of the season. “This team has a lot of character. We’ve been down in games, we’ve been tied in games, and I think that we just showed our character tonight in being able to come back and pull out this game in overtime, always having that belief that we can come back and win no matter what the circumstances are. We believe in each other.”
That belief will need to get even stronger this week, with Stanford kicking off College Cup play on Friday against Florida State (18-6-1). All four No. 1 seeds—Duke, Wake Forest, the Cardinal and the Seminoles—still remain in the tournament, and Stanford is the only squad to come from outside the ACC.
There are more than enough Cardinal players with a chip on their shoulder after falling in the College Cup final 1-0 in consecutive seasons. But there’s a bit of extra incentive for the seniors, who have now posted a near-perfect 53-0-1 home record since 2008 and won’t have another chance at a national title after this season. And while the sun will set on the seniors’ playing careers at Stanford next weekend, Friday night felt like the end of an era in its own right.
“It means a lot to win our last game here like this, in sort of dramatic fashion,” Taylor said. “It’ll be a great memory, but we’ll really have only great memories of this field, and to be able to do it on a night like this, I think it just puts the icing on the cake. There’s only one thing we have left to do, and that’s win the national championship. But it’s a great feeling to leave without ever losing on this field in front of these great fans.”