Nov. 1, 2007
STANFORD, Calif. - Behind the strength of five consecutive goals, the second-seeded Stanford Cardinal advanced to the semifinal round of the NorPac Field Hockey Championship with a 5-1 victory over the seventh-seeded Appalachian State Mountaineers Thursday at the Varsity Field Hockey Turf.
With the win, the Cardinal will face the Radford Highlanders in a semifinal contest at 3 p.m. Friday afternoon. The Highlanders, seeded sixth in the tournament, upset No. 3 Pacific, 2-1, earlier Thursday to advance.
Jess Zutz scored her 10th and 11th goals of the season, while Katherine Swank, Rachel Mozenter, and Xanthe Travlos all added goals as the Cardinal outshot the Mountaineers by an incredible 36-3 margin in the contest.
"We wanted to generate a lot of offense, which I think we did," said Stanford head coach Lesley Irvine. "Appalachian State withstood a great amount of pressure in the first 15 to 20 minutes of the game, and it was a good test of our character to see if we could just keep plugging away. It was a team effort. We were putting in non-starters in that second half and continuing the momentum. We have great depth on the team."
Despite a tremendous effort by Mountaineers goalkeeper Denise Adams, who made 20 saves on the day, the Cardinal finally broke through at the 22:04 mark, as Lisa Maffucci lifted the ball out of a scramble in front of the Appalachian State goal, and Zutz one-timed it perfectly for the game's opening score.
With the first goal in the bag, things looked to slow down for the Cardinal, who cashed in again just over 10 minutes later. Swank flicked a Hillary Braun offering past Adams for the 2-0 lead, and only a minute and 27 seconds later, Mozenter banged in a rebound off a Zutz shot to make it 3-0 Cardinal.
Zutz closed the scoring in the first half with an unassisted goal, putting in a rebound at the 42:30 mark for her second of the game.
"It was really important for us to come out and make a statement in this first game that we're here to take it all," Zutz said afterwards. "It's really great having the tournament here my senior year, and very exciting to be on our home turf."
Stanford's scoring was concluded at the 58:36 mark with Travlos' goal that was set up nicely off of a corner shot. Bailey Richardson inserted the ball to Midori Uehara, who teed Travlos up for the fifth score.
The Mountaineers got on the board at 69:26 thanks to Jessie Harris' goal, which saw her deflect Jessica Harris' shot past Stanford keeper Madison Bell.