LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Stanford displayed a dominant offensive performance on Friday afternoon en route to a 4-0 shutout victory over Bellarmine. The Cardinal moves to 5-1 ahead of its ACC debut this weekend, while Bellarmine drops to 2-4 on the year.
Cara Sambeth scored her team-leading fourth goal of the season to highlight four different goal scorers in the contest, rattling the cage alongside Alayna Burns, Scout Butler and Allison Kuzyk. Jenny O'Grady and Liv Martin each tallied a pair of assists on penalty corner chances, while Daisy Ford earned the win between the posts.
"No matter who the opponent is, we can score goals and we have multiple different goal scorers," head coach Roz Ellis said. "The team came into a focus of playing moment by moment and dominating each of those moments. It was exciting to see the team go up early and establish that dominance throughout the game."
Kuzyk put Stanford on the board early with a breakaway chance, firing a left-side backhand past the Knights netminder. Shortly after, Sambeth scored on the Cardinal's first penalty corner of the game to take a 2-0 lead after one quarter.
"It's a great start to the week," Sambeth said. "We started off strong with two goals in each of the first two quarters and I think it was a great opportunity to build confidence as we move into the next two games."
The Stanford scoring continued in the second frame with Burns collecting the rebound off a Bellarmine save and firing it past the goalkeeper's right pad, then Butler tallied Stanford's second penalty corner goal of the half to put the game out of reach.
Stanford sealed the game on defense in what was a quiet second half, holding the Knights to just two offensive attacks to bleed out the remainder of the game.
Looking ahead, the Cardinal has a big weekend on deck with a pair of ranked opponents to kick off the ACC slate. Stanford returns to Trager Stadium on Friday to take on No. 12 Louisville at 1:00 p.m. PT before heading to Virginia to take on the Cavaliers on Sunday at 10:00 p.m. PT.