No. 21 Stanford field hockey (1-2, 0-0 America East) beat Quinnipiac (0-3, 0-0 Big East) 4-1 on Tuesday, marking the team’s first victory this season.
The Cardinal began its season with two road-bumps: home games against No. 15 Northwestern (2-1, 0-0 Big Ten) and No. 4 Connecticut (2-0, 0-0 Big East).
The match against the Wildcats resulted in some major highlights, including junior attacker Corinne Zanolli’s 100th career point and freshman defender Rose Winter’s first career goal, but the Cardinal ended up falling to Northwestern 3-4 in double overtime.
The following match against Connecticut ended with a 2-3 Stanford loss and another pair of goals from Winter and Zanolli; in the end, a 2-0 lead over the Huskies in the first half was not enough to overcome the top-five team.
Naturally, the back-to-back losses only made Stanford more revved up to serve a steaming hot plate of vengeance today. Quinnipiac also approached today’s match with their heads hanging a bit lower than usual; the Bobcats suffered losses to both UC Berkeley (1-1, 0-0 America East) and UC Davis (1-0, 0-0 America East) on Friday and Sunday, respectively.
Stanford’s first ever game against Quinnipiac started on the right foot when redshirt sophomore defender Sarah Johnson, off of a rebound from Zanolli, put one in the net at 4:41. Only thirteen minutes later, Zanolli followed up with another goal off of a penalty corner. The Cardinal were amassing momentum with which the Bobcats simply could not compete. At the 25-minute mark, Stanford added a third goal from Winter, who now has scored a goal in each of this season’s games. The good times kept rolling for the Cardinal despite the Bobcat’s prompt response at the 27th minute, when sophomore Jess Halley popped one in the net off of a rebound from a penalty corner.
With 3-1 on the scoreboard at the end of the first half, Stanford was coasting. The Cardinal had twelve shots to the Bobcats’ five and nine penalty corners to the Bobcats’ two. The second half wasn’t very different. In less than two minutes from the start of the second half, junior midfielder Frances Carstens reclaimed the three-point lead after picking up some loose change in front of net. Stanford again dominated in terms of shots and penalty corners, and the game’s fate was sealed. The Cardinal secured its first victory of the season and its first victory against Quinnipiac with a 4-1 decision.
Next time, Stanford goes up against another ranked opponent, No. 7 Michigan (1-1, 0-0 Big Ten). Catch the match against the Wolverines on Friday, Sept. 6 at 7:00 p.m. PT on campus.
Contact Arman Kassam at armank ‘at’ stanford.edu.