Sept. 17, 2005
Irvine, Calif. - Stanford (5-0) edged out Pepperdine (5-1) this evening in a 7-6 victory that came down to the last minutes of game time. The Cardinal handed Pepperdine their first loss of the season.
Stanford scored the only goal of the first period to jump to an early lead, and both teams netted two goals in the second quarter to give Stanford a 3-2 edge at the half. Pepperdine fell to a 3-1 run by the Cardinal in the third period, but the last quarter showed some stamina from the Waves as they charged back from a Stanford 7-4 lead. But the Cardinal held on in the last minute of the game to come out ahead, 7-6.
Peter Varellas scored three goals in the match to lead the Cardinal in scoring. William Hindle-Katel netted two goals and Thomas Hopkins and Tyler Drake each scored one goal. Sandy Hohener made six saves as goalie to help fight off the fifth ranked Waves.
Grant Miller led the Waves scoring with three goals, Matt Hahn finished with two scored against the Cardinal, and Jason Langten came up with one goal in the match.
Stanford advances to a championship semifinal match against #1 ranked and defending national champion UCLA Sunday at 10:30am. UCLA downed Bucknell in their tournament opener 12-2 and went on to beat UC Irvine 9-7 to advance to the semifinals. Tomorrow will be the first matching between UCLA and Stanford since last year's down-to-the-wire NCAA championship game.