April 18, 2001
Moraga, CA - Stanford, ranked 20th by the IWLCA, flexed its muscle in its final regular season conference game with a 15-7 win over the St. Mary's Gaels. This win was the second over the Gaels this season and the Cardinal's sixth consecutive WWLL victory. St. Mary's traveled to The Farm for their first game of the season on February 24, and left with a 9-8 loss. With this game Stanford improved its record to 11-3 overall, 6-0 WWLL and St. Mary's fell to 6-7 overall, 1-5 WWLL.
The Cardinal took the lead two minutes into the game and overpowered the Gaels defense as senior tri-captain Katharine Barnes (Northhampton, MA /Deerfield Academy) scored 4 goals in the first half. Stanford led 7-3 at halftime and proved just as strong in the second half, allowing only one Gael's player to score and putting in 8 goals of their own.
Barnes led the way with 6 goals in the game and two other Stanford players, Caroline Osterwise (Villanova, PA/Harriton HS) and Abbi Hills (Lakewood, CO/Colorado Academy), each recorded a hat trick. Sophomore Rachael Neumann (Woodbury, NY/Syosset HS) started in goal and played 47:43, allowing only 5 goals, lowering her goals-allowed-average to 8.78. Freshman Sara Shamos (Denver, CO/Colorado Academy) stepped into the cage for the seventh time off the bench this season, to stop the Gaels from closing the gap and help the Cardinal to its third straight win.
Stanford continues this week's road-trip with a match on Saturday, April 21 at 12pm (ET) against the University of New Hampshire and a match on Sunday, April 22 at 12pm (ET) against Boston College. These games close out the regular season and the Cardinal returns to action the following weekend in the WWLL playoffs. In the first game of the playoffs Stanford will face St. Mary's at 12pm (PT) on Saturday, April 28, in Moraga.
Scoring Summary 1 2 F Stanford 7 8 = 15 St. Mary's 3 4 = 7
Goals: (S) Barnes 6 (37), Hills 3 (37), Osterwise 3 (18), Britt (9), Nyborg (2), Sawyer (5), (St.M) Bryan 6 (46), A. Back (13)
Assists: (S) Hills (7), (St.M) Spencer 2 (11), Bryan (5)