Nov. 26, 2011
MPSF Championship Central
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Fourth-seeded Stanford survived a scare from fifth-seeded UC Santa Barbara in Friday's MPSF Championship quarterfinal at UCLA, holding off a Gaucho comeback to win 11-10 and advance to Saturday's semifinal round.
The Cardinal will take on top seed USC Saturday at 1:30 p.m.
Travis Noll scored three times to lead the Cardinal Saturday. Paul Rudolph and Forrest Watkins each scored twice while Ryan Kent, Andrew LaForge, Peter Sefton and Jacob Smith all added goals to the effort.
Defensively, Brian Pingree made 10 saves for the Cardinal.
Early on, it appeared as if things would be going the Cardinal's way as a pair of goals from Noll along with one from both Rudolph and LaForge made it 4-1 Stanford within the game's first five and a half minutes.
UC Santa Barbara crept back into the game, though, getting to within a goal on four occasions over the next two periods. The Gauchos finally pulled even at 7-7 thanks to a Chase Racich goal with 5:29 to go in the third frame.
The game became an outright dogfight from there, as the Cardinal retook the lead three more times just to have the Gauchos equalize each time. The fourth time that Stanford pulled ahead, this time at 11-10 behind the arm of Sefton with 1:46 to go in regulation, UCSB had no answer as the Cardinal defense held.
UC Santa Barbara - 2 3 3 2 = 10
Stanford - 4 3 2 2 = 11
Stanford Goal Scorers: Noll 3, Rudolph 2, Watkins 2, Kent, LaForge, Sefton, Smith
UCSB Goal Scorers: Gillespie 2, Zhang 2, Gronow, Johnson, Komadinic, Miller, Racich, B. Shoemaker
Goalie Saves: Pingree 10 (S); Christian 7 (UCSB)