STANFORD, Calif. - A flurry of goals in the third period and a stout defensive display lifted Stanford to a 3-1 victory over California in Friday evening's regular-season finale.
With the win, the Cardinal clinched a berth in the ACC Championships, jumping to 8-8 on the year with a 2-6 mark in conference play. California moves to a 7-9, 1-7 ACC record.
"The team knew what was on the line tonight, and they harnessed the emotions of the game and turned it into nice hockey," head coach Roz Ellis said. "I'm really proud of them taking risks early in the game and going for it in the second half to get the win. Overall, really happy with how we played."
It was a defensive deadlock through the first 30 minutes, as Stanford fended off ten Golden Bear attacks to go into the halftime scoreless.
The Cardinal offense struck quickly out of the halftime break, as Anna Ghuliani opened up the scoring by cleaning up an offensive rebound and rattling the cage to put Stanford out front.
Later in the quarter, Allison Kuzyk tipped in a deflection off the Cal goaltender's pad to double the Cardinal lead. Two minutes later, Cara Sambeth added her team-leading sixth goal of the year off a feed from Kuzyk to push the advantage to three goals.
"Before the game, we said that today needed to be four quarters of full throttle," Ellis added. "We executing our game plan and I'm happy to see different goal scorers and multiple players shooting the ball on the cage."
California added a goal with 13 seconds remaining but it was inconsequential as the Cardinal cruised to the victory over its Bay Area foe.
In addition to the three goal scorers for Stanford, Star Horlock paced the team with five offensive attacks, while Daisy Ford tallied nine saves between the posts in the winning effort.
"Tonight's win was massive for our team," Ford said after her performance. "I think we showed that we're not [in the ACC] just to make up numbers, we are here to compete and I'm excited to see what we can accomplish next week"
Stanford will now make the trip East to the ACC Championships, with the first round of the tournament slated to begin on Tuesday, November 5.