Nov. 8, 2002
Stanford, Calif. - Stanford (10-10) advanced to the finals of the NorPac Championships for a fifth straight year with a 3-2 comeback win over Radford (8-11) in a semifinal contest Friday at the Varsity Field Hockey Turf. The Cardinal will face local rival California (13-6) in Saturday's championship game (12:30 pm). The Golden Bears won their fifth straight game with a 1-0 victory over Pacific in Friday's other semifinal contest. The winner of Saturday's championship game will host an NCAA Play-In game versus the winner of the Patriot League on Tuesday, November 12 (TBA). Lafayette and Holy Cross play in the Patriot League championship game on Saturday.
Stanford and California will be squaring off in the finals of the NorPac Championships for the fifth straight year. Each team has won the event twice since its inception in 1998. The Cardinal took the title in 1998 and 2000, while the Golden Bears were winners in 1999 and 2001. California has won nine of the last 11 meetings overall between the teams, including a pair of 2-1 regular season victories this year.
"We are looking forward to playing California tomorrow with a lot on the line," said Stanford head coach Sheryl Johnson, who will retire after 18 years following this season. "Today's game was a great performance by our team, and we had some awesome goals."
Stanford trailed 2-1 versus Radford until goals late in the second half by Amrit Chima and Noor Dawood lifted the Cardinal to a victory over the top seed from the East Division.
Dawood's game-winning goal was her team-leading fourth of the season and came at 61:11 shortly after a Stanford penalty corner. Chima was credited with an assist on the goal.
Stanford had trailed 2-1 until Chima tied the game with an unassisted goal at 58:35, scoring shortly after a shot by Missy Halliday had been saved by Radford goalkeeper Tina Caiazza.
Stanford had led 1-0 early in the contest when Eleanor Morgan scored her first goal of the season with an assist by Amanda Billmyer at 15:45.
The 1-0 lead held up for Stanford until Radford's Jenny Bell scored the first of her two goals on an assist by Erin Lenhardt at 26:59.
A second unassisted goal by Bell at 47:48 gave the Highlanders a 2-1 lead.
Billmyer (23), Chima (20) and Dawood (16) all raised their career season-best point totals. Billmyer now has 54 points in her career, the most of any active Stanford player.
Caiazza had six saves for the Highlanders, while Emily Zander stopped three Radford shots.Stanford outshot the Highlanders, 10-9, marking the 18th time in 20 games this season that the Cardinal has outshot its opponents. Both teams picked up six penalty corners.
Stanford improved to 10-2 all-time in NorPac Championships play and won for the 16th time in its last 20 NorPac games (regular season and post-season). The Cardinal also reached double digits in victories for the third straight season.
Pacific (4-13) and Radford will play a third-place game Saturday at 10 am.