Welcome to This Week In Sports. We are The Daily’s sports editors, Ells Boone and Zach Zafran, and we’ll be walking you through the major games, events and stories from the past week, as well as providing a brief preview of what’s coming up this week.
The men’s soccer team kicked off the Fall season on the Farm with two exhibition matches this past week. Last Wednesday, they took down Sonoma State 3-1. Sophomore forward Jackson Kiil, junior midfielder Layton Purchase and freshman forward Liam Doyle were the goalscorers for Stanford. On Saturday, the Cardinal returned to Cagan Stadium and defeated Bay Area foe San Francisco 2-0. Junior defender Noah Adnan and sophomore midfielder Shane de Flores made it onto the scoresheet this time for head coach Jeremy Gunn’s team. The Cardinal will officially kick off the season this Thursday at home against Villanova.
No. 21 women’s soccer jumped straight into official competition this past week, winning its season opener against Sacramento State (0-1-0, 0-0-0 Big Sky) 5-0. The star of the show was junior forward Samantha Williams, as she registered two goals and an assist. Freshman forward Lumi Kostmayer also made an instant impact in her first career game, scoring a goal. The team returned to the pitch on Sunday night, taking down the Chinese National Team 1-0 after an 85th-minute goal from junior midfielder Maya Doms. Up next, Stanford will hit the road for a matchup against the University of San Francisco on Thursday night.
Field hockey is getting ready to open its season against Holy Cross at home this Friday at 12 p.m. PT. The Cardinal came in at No. 3 in the America East preseason coaches’ poll, receiving one first place vote. Head coach Roz Ellis is entering her second season at the helm of the program and will surely be looking for her team to finish higher than that.
No. 14 women’s volleyball is also gearing up for its season opener. Later this week, the team will travel to Nashville, Tenn. to take on Lipscomb and Tennessee State on Friday and Saturday, respectively. The Cardinal also landed at No. 2 in the Preseason Pac-12 Coaches’ Poll and have three players — sophomore Kami Miner, senior Kendall Kipp and redshirt junior Caitie Baird — on the Preseason All-Pac-12 Team.