In a magnificent weekend’s play, the Stanford women’s lacrosse team won the 2015 MPSF Championship and earned its fifth NCAA tournament appearance in six years. On Friday at Peter Barton Stadium in Denver, the Cardinal dominated the Colorado Buffaloes, 16-5, and in the tournament’s final game on Sunday against USC, the Cardinal earned a 16-11 victory to clinch the championship.
For the ninth time in its history, Stanford completed a perfect conference season with an undefeated record and a tournament title, ending conference play with an 11-0 record. The Cardinal now travels to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to take on Florida in the first round of the NCAA tourney on Friday.
On Friday, the Cardinal handily defeated Colorado, 16-5. Freshman midfielder Kelly Myers had a career best performance, pitching in with 6 goals and 1 assist. Myers opened the scoring for the Cardinal, scoring the first goal only 11 seconds into the game. Stanford led the entire game and showed their dominance on both sides of the ball, as shown by a 12-0 run that held the Buffaloes scoreless for a stretch of 46:14.
Stanford’s powerhouse offense had great performances from Myers who had 4 draw controls in addition to her 6 goals. Alongside her was junior attacker Alexandra Crerend, junior midfielder Mackenzie Tesei and junior midfielder Lucy Dikeou, who each netted 2 goals. Dikeou also had 2 assists, 3 draw controls, 3 ground balls and caused 2 turnovers. Senior midfielder Hannah Farr also tallied 1 goal and contributed with her 3 draw controls. The depth and potency of the offense has been seen all season long, as Stanford has averaged 16.35 goals per game for the season.
Defensively, the Cardinal remained strong all game. Junior defender Adrienne Anderson had 5 ground balls and junior defender Meg Lentz earned 3 ground balls. Freshman goalie Allie DaCar, who was named to the second-team All-MPSF, made 5 saves and picked up 2 ground balls.
With the momentum of undefeated conference play behind them, the Cardinal entered the MPSF Championship ready to push towards another perfect conference season and title. In their way stood the Trojans.
The first half remained tight and the Cardinal only led 6-5 at the half. However, at the start of the second half Stanford began to pull away, eventually leading 10-5 with 21:23 to play. Hannah Farr scored 3 goals in the second half helping the Cardinal secure the victory. The Stanford women also made some halftime adjustments to their attack. USC was playing an unusual zone defense for most of the game.
“Coach Hogan recognized the zone defense and helped out the offense by telling us to be patient and stretch them out,” Farr said. She also mentioned that the halftime changes led to less turnovers and better ball possession.
The diverse Stanford offense was then able to capitalize on their opportunities amidst these readjustments, as Farr tallied 4 goals, 1 assist and 3 draw controls. Fifth-year senior Rachel Ozer, Crerend, and Myers also scored 3 apiece.
The Stanford defense was equally impressive, led once again by Adrienne Anderson. This time around, their ability to man-to-man mark while also demonstrating great slide technique in their help defense was showcased. Rachel Kalick had 4 ground balls and DaCar made 7 saves.
Stanford freshman Kelly Myers earned tournament MVP honors for her outstanding weekend performance. She scored 9 goals and had 8 draw controls, amongst which were huge contributions to the Cardinal’s 21-7 draw advantage versus USC. Stanford’s team as a whole also leads the nation in draw controls. Adrienne Anderson, Alexandra Crerend and Hannah Farr were all also named to the All-Tournament Team, joining Myers.
The team will begin NCAA tournament play on Friday, May 8 in the first round.
Contact Kristina Bassi at kbassi ‘at’ stanford.edu.