April 17, 2009
DAVIDSON, N.C. - The No. 15 Stanford women's lacrosse team opened a two-game trip in North Carolina with a 19-4 rout of Davidson, getting scoring from a season-high 14 players in Friday's nonconference contest.
Freshman Maria Fortino scored the first two goals of her collegiate career to tie Bess Siegfried, Sarah Flynn, Karen Nesbitt and Maggie Sachs for team goal-scoring honors.
Leslie Foard scored only 19 seconds into the game, off an assist from Flynn, to spark a flurry of 11 unanswered goals over the first 21 minutes for Stanford (10-3).
Goalkeeper Annie Read, ranked No. 11 in the country in goals-against average, lowered her average to 8.62 and was required to make only four saves behind a defense that compensated well for the loss of injured senior Maris Perlman, the reigning conference player of the week.
"Our defense made adjustments, and was very organized," Stanford coach Amy Bokker said. "And the offense was able to put it in, which is something we've been working on."
Co-captain Bess Siegfried played a large leadership role in defense and was pivotal to the team's strong ball distribution. The defense also got boosts from the additions of Foard and Jamie Nesbitt, filling in for Perlman, and from the return of co-captain Melissa Vogelsong from injury.
Stanford is 4-0 in nonconference games against teams outside the Top 10 rankings. However, the Cardinal will be looking for its first victory against a Top 10 team in four tries when it plays Sunday at No. 4 North Carolina (12-3), which won at No. 5 Duke on Friday, 9-7.
A victory against a highly-ranked team would go far in helping secure an NCAA at-large bid should Stanford win the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament (April 23-26) at home.
"I hope so," Bokker said. "Overall, we have a pretty good strength of schedule. It would be nice to upset one of these Top 10 teams."
Stanford 19, Davidson 4
Stanford 13 6 - 19
Davidson 1 3 - 4
S - Bess Siegfried (2 goals, 2 assists), Sarah Flynn (2-1), Karen Nesbitt (2-0), Maggie Sachs (2-0), Maria Fortino (2-0), Leslie Foard (1-2), Anna Boeri (1-1), Jamie Nesbitt (1-0), Julie Christy (1-0), Dana Lindsay (1-0), Lauren Schmidt (1-0), Ashley Aruffo (1-0), Amanda Schwab (1-0), Emilie Boeri (1-0), Claire Hubbard (0-1).
D - Anna Smith (2-0), Jen Crawford (1-0), Haley Hook (1-0).
Records - Stanford 10-3, Davidson 5-9.