09-12-2014, 03:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2014, 05:22 PM by Viking_Guy.)
A win of large proportions for the Stanford field hockey team today over perennial power and #7 Iowa, coming back from a late 1-0 deficit to score the tying goal with under 7 minutes left and the winning goal 10 minutes into sudden death overtime.
A bit of background: Iowa has been one of the two midwestern powerhouses in the sport dominated by East Coast teams, the other being Northwestern. Stanford has a history of success against them, however. This season, the Hawkeyes started ranked #20 in the preseason poll. Part of the reason was probably their dismissal of their previous head coach (see http://thegazette.com/subject/sports/the...a-20140806). And they have a lot of freshmen. But they came out and beat #11 Wake Forest 4-1 before getting hammered by now #1 North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then beat #6 Virginia 4-3 in Iowa City. So coming to the West Coast, they were 2-1 but jumped up to #7 in the rankings. They beat UC Davis 3-1 yesterday.
Stanford, as I mentioned before, started off the season 5-0, having given up 1 goal in five games, and only allowing opponents an average of 5 shots per game, improving from #13 in the preseason poll to #8 now.
So it was going to be a tussle.
For the most part, Iowa controlled the match. They have a great attacking player in Natalie Cafone who has that combination of speed and balance you need in a game you spend leaning forward to reach down for the ball. And they have an excellent backline anchor in Chandler Ackers. Stanford has a great defender in Kelsey Harbin, and a good finisher in Alex McCawley, but was missing its midfield connecting player, Maddie Secco, who is playing with the Canadian national team right now. And it showed; the Cardinal had a lot of trouble bringing the ball through Iowa's pressure in Stanford's end. When they managed to break out, Ackers was often waiting to turn the ball right back down at Dulcie Davies. So it felt a bit like continuous Hawkeye pressure with leavenings of Stanford counterattacks.
But it was still 0-0 at halftime. With the heat of a noontime game on a turf field, you watched in the second half as players started to lose their legs, and it cost Stanford first. Iowa had kept the pressure on in the opening part of the second half, but it was when Stanford moved forward on offense that a counterattacking Cafone dribbled through three tiring Cardinal defenders before cutting a ball back from the endline on the right post past a sliding Dulcie Davies to Sophie Plasteras, who managed to hook the ball into the open net. First goal Stanford had given up in 3+ games, in the 53rd minute (field hockey plays two 35-minute halfs in regulation).
Don't know if many of you read my earlier post about the team, but Stanford suffers under the onus of being the best team in the weakest region for field hockey. They did well at New Hampshire, beating three "also receiving votes"-type programs, but they really need marquee wins to fight the perception of a good team in a bad conference, or maybe the best analogy would be the "mid-majors" of women's and men's basketball. Gonzaga's men's (though not so much anymore) and women's basketball teams don't get much credit for beating their conference foes (but get severely dinged if they lose), so they need those "bracket buster" games to catch the eye of the basketball establishment. Same with Stanford field hockey; the result that killed them last year was losing at UC Davis 3-2 in OT. When they lost in the conference tournament final (on Liberty's home field), they didn't even get an invite to the tourney, despite being ranked in the top 15 all season.
And Stanford really needed this game. They started to press forward more, and with just under seven minutes left, Clemence Couteau dispossessed a Hawkeye defender on the left sideline, worked into the middle and smacked a long ball at goal. Again, in field hockey, a player needs to touch the ball inside the circle to make a goal count, and Alex McCawley did just that, diving in front of her defender with a stick extended to just nick the ball and redirect it in at the far post. 1-1, and Stanford had new life. They pressed forward and had a few chances late, but the clock eventually ran out on regulation.
So, after 70 minutes of running in a game that is really more continuous in play than soccer (restarts are in general much faster, as common fouls and other stoppages occur frequently), the teams headed out for an extra frame. Here's where I wonder about something: Iowa played a VERY short bench. In this heat, having played yesterday, they only used three subs throughout the course of the game. Stanford used 6. In the overtime, when teams are reduced from 11 players to 7, action becomes even more end-to-end, and when Stanford's players tired, they were replaced. Kasey Quon went on two long runs early in the overtime, and on the second was definitely rubber-legged. So she came out, and on came Sarah Helgeson, who took a ball from deep in her own end and made a long run up the middle of the field, before playing the ball into the circle and, in the ensuing run of play, Alex McCawley drew a penalty corner (when a less-serious infraction occurs inside the circle). In overtime, that results in a 5 v 3 opportunity for the offense, and Stanford got off a good shot that rebounded around before hitting the body of an Iowa player (at least in the referee's estimation). A second penalty corner, and the exact same play, with Kelsey Harbin stopping the ball up top, then playing a quick ball back to the side that the corner came from as the defense rushed at her. Jessica Chisholm fired a quick shot low, and the Iowa goalie, who had been baking in the sun in 20 or so pounds of gear for almost 2 hours, was a little slow to get down; the ball got under her and smacked into the backboard of the goal.
All in all, a GREAT result. Beating a top-10 team that has just beaten two other acknowledged powerhouses looks really nice. Stanford now has to contend with a very good Albany team (currently ranked #12) at home on Sunday morning. But if they can win that game, they very well could eclipse their all-time highest ranking of #6, having beaten #7 Iowa, with #1 North Carolina playing #5 Syracuse, and with #6 Penn State playing two weaker teams in Princeton and Lafayette.
Well done, Cardinal!
VG
A bit of background: Iowa has been one of the two midwestern powerhouses in the sport dominated by East Coast teams, the other being Northwestern. Stanford has a history of success against them, however. This season, the Hawkeyes started ranked #20 in the preseason poll. Part of the reason was probably their dismissal of their previous head coach (see http://thegazette.com/subject/sports/the...a-20140806). And they have a lot of freshmen. But they came out and beat #11 Wake Forest 4-1 before getting hammered by now #1 North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then beat #6 Virginia 4-3 in Iowa City. So coming to the West Coast, they were 2-1 but jumped up to #7 in the rankings. They beat UC Davis 3-1 yesterday.
Stanford, as I mentioned before, started off the season 5-0, having given up 1 goal in five games, and only allowing opponents an average of 5 shots per game, improving from #13 in the preseason poll to #8 now.
So it was going to be a tussle.
For the most part, Iowa controlled the match. They have a great attacking player in Natalie Cafone who has that combination of speed and balance you need in a game you spend leaning forward to reach down for the ball. And they have an excellent backline anchor in Chandler Ackers. Stanford has a great defender in Kelsey Harbin, and a good finisher in Alex McCawley, but was missing its midfield connecting player, Maddie Secco, who is playing with the Canadian national team right now. And it showed; the Cardinal had a lot of trouble bringing the ball through Iowa's pressure in Stanford's end. When they managed to break out, Ackers was often waiting to turn the ball right back down at Dulcie Davies. So it felt a bit like continuous Hawkeye pressure with leavenings of Stanford counterattacks.
But it was still 0-0 at halftime. With the heat of a noontime game on a turf field, you watched in the second half as players started to lose their legs, and it cost Stanford first. Iowa had kept the pressure on in the opening part of the second half, but it was when Stanford moved forward on offense that a counterattacking Cafone dribbled through three tiring Cardinal defenders before cutting a ball back from the endline on the right post past a sliding Dulcie Davies to Sophie Plasteras, who managed to hook the ball into the open net. First goal Stanford had given up in 3+ games, in the 53rd minute (field hockey plays two 35-minute halfs in regulation).
Don't know if many of you read my earlier post about the team, but Stanford suffers under the onus of being the best team in the weakest region for field hockey. They did well at New Hampshire, beating three "also receiving votes"-type programs, but they really need marquee wins to fight the perception of a good team in a bad conference, or maybe the best analogy would be the "mid-majors" of women's and men's basketball. Gonzaga's men's (though not so much anymore) and women's basketball teams don't get much credit for beating their conference foes (but get severely dinged if they lose), so they need those "bracket buster" games to catch the eye of the basketball establishment. Same with Stanford field hockey; the result that killed them last year was losing at UC Davis 3-2 in OT. When they lost in the conference tournament final (on Liberty's home field), they didn't even get an invite to the tourney, despite being ranked in the top 15 all season.
And Stanford really needed this game. They started to press forward more, and with just under seven minutes left, Clemence Couteau dispossessed a Hawkeye defender on the left sideline, worked into the middle and smacked a long ball at goal. Again, in field hockey, a player needs to touch the ball inside the circle to make a goal count, and Alex McCawley did just that, diving in front of her defender with a stick extended to just nick the ball and redirect it in at the far post. 1-1, and Stanford had new life. They pressed forward and had a few chances late, but the clock eventually ran out on regulation.
So, after 70 minutes of running in a game that is really more continuous in play than soccer (restarts are in general much faster, as common fouls and other stoppages occur frequently), the teams headed out for an extra frame. Here's where I wonder about something: Iowa played a VERY short bench. In this heat, having played yesterday, they only used three subs throughout the course of the game. Stanford used 6. In the overtime, when teams are reduced from 11 players to 7, action becomes even more end-to-end, and when Stanford's players tired, they were replaced. Kasey Quon went on two long runs early in the overtime, and on the second was definitely rubber-legged. So she came out, and on came Sarah Helgeson, who took a ball from deep in her own end and made a long run up the middle of the field, before playing the ball into the circle and, in the ensuing run of play, Alex McCawley drew a penalty corner (when a less-serious infraction occurs inside the circle). In overtime, that results in a 5 v 3 opportunity for the offense, and Stanford got off a good shot that rebounded around before hitting the body of an Iowa player (at least in the referee's estimation). A second penalty corner, and the exact same play, with Kelsey Harbin stopping the ball up top, then playing a quick ball back to the side that the corner came from as the defense rushed at her. Jessica Chisholm fired a quick shot low, and the Iowa goalie, who had been baking in the sun in 20 or so pounds of gear for almost 2 hours, was a little slow to get down; the ball got under her and smacked into the backboard of the goal.
All in all, a GREAT result. Beating a top-10 team that has just beaten two other acknowledged powerhouses looks really nice. Stanford now has to contend with a very good Albany team (currently ranked #12) at home on Sunday morning. But if they can win that game, they very well could eclipse their all-time highest ranking of #6, having beaten #7 Iowa, with #1 North Carolina playing #5 Syracuse, and with #6 Penn State playing two weaker teams in Princeton and Lafayette.
Well done, Cardinal!
VG
