Oct. 4, 2003
East Lansing, Mich. - Stanford (3-7) started a four-game road swing with a 5-0 loss at No. 9 Michigan State (9-3) on Saturday at the MSU Field Hockey Complex, the first of three games over four days the Cardinal will play in East Lansing, Michigan. Alexander Kyser led the Spartans with a pair of goals, her team-leading 10th and 11th of the season, as well as a pair of assists. Veerle Goudswaard and Jennifer Beeuwkes each had one goal and two assists, while Annebet Beerman added a goal. Stanford, which had ended a five-game losing streak with a key 4-2 NorPac win over Pacific in its most recent match last Saturday, held the Spartans scoreless for most of the first half before Michigan State broke loose for three goals just before the break and came back with two more early in the second half.
Kyser broke a scoreless tie at 31:22 when she received a pass from Goudswaard and beat Stanford goalkeeper Ana Kralovec to give the Spartans a 1-0 lead. Just one minute and 38 seconds later at 33:00, Goudswaard scored on a penalty corner with assists credited to Beeuwkes and Kyser. Beeuwkes gave the Spartans another goal before the break when she scored unassisted at 34:02.
The Spartans picked up where they left off before the break early in the second half when Kyser scored her second goal on another assist from Goudswaard at 38:59 and Beerman finished off the scoring when she converted a penalty corner at 40:01 with Beeuwkes and Kyser picking up assists.
Michigan State outshot Stanford, 30-5, and held a 15-2 advantage in penalty corners.
Kyser and Beerman attempted eight shots each to lead all players, while Cara-Lynn Lopresti had three of Stanford's five attempts.
Michigan State starting goalkeeper Christina Kirkaldy picked up a pair of saves and recorded the win to improve her record to 9-3. Lauren Hess and Stephanie Yuhasz also saw time in the net for the Spartans. Kralovec (1-2) suffered the loss despite tying a career-high with her second consecutive game of seven saves, all in the first half. Emily Zander played the second half in the net for Stanford and stopped four Spartan shots.
Stanford, who had scored seven goals in its previous two games, was shutout for just the second time this season while the five-goal deficit marked the team's most lopsided defeat since the Cardinal also lost by five goals to Old Dominion (6-1) in a first round NCAA playoff on November 11, 2000.
Michigan State extended its home win streak to 18 and avenged a 2-1 loss at Stanford in the most recent meeting between the teams on August 31, 2001.
"It was great experience to be able to play on the road against one of the nation's best teams," said Stanford head coach Lesley Irvine. "There were spells in this game where we played well, and we're looking forward to completing our Michigan trip with a pair of strong games."
Stanford finishes its three-game swing through Michigan with a pair of neutral games in East Lansing versus Northwestern (Sunday, October 5, 2 pm, ET) and Central Michigan (Tuesday, October 7, 11 am, ET). A key showdown at California on October 11 concludes a four-game road stretch for the Cardinal before the team returns home for an exhibition contest against its Alumnae on Sunday, October 19 (1 pm, PT) and hosts Southwest Missouri State in its final two regular season home contests on Sunday, October 26 (1 pm, PT) and Tuesday, October 28 (11 am, PT).