STANFORD, Calif. - After leading the Cardinal to its fourth conference championship in the last five years, along with a trip to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championship, the coaching staff of Tara Danielson, Patrick Cota and Steve Danielson have been named the West Region Staff of the Year by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA).
Stanford finished the 2020 season, played during the spring of 2021, with an overall record of 11-3, including a 6-2 mark in America East play. Entering the conference tournament as the No. 3 seed, the Cardinal earned a 2-1 win over Maine in the semifinals and won a double overtime thriller in the championship at Monmouth, 3-2, to earn its 18th trip to the NCAA Tournament.
There, Stanford picked up a dramatic, 5-4 overtime victory over Miami (Ohio), earning its third NCAA Tournament victory in program history. The Cardinal battled top seed and eventual champion North Carolina to the final horn, before dropping a 2-0 result in Chapel Hill to end the year.
Stanford accomplished this success without much of a preseason, as COVID-19 restrictions prohibited sports in the county for the early portions of the year. Nonetheless, senior Corinne Zanolli was named the America East Offensive Player of the Year for the third time and finished the season with the second-most goals in the nation, despite playing six less games than the NCAA leader.
Off the field, Stanford boasts the second-highest cumulative GPA of any field hockey team in the country, with 16 players earning a spot on the NFHCA's National Academic Squad.