On Sunday, No. 7 Stanford women’s soccer defeated No. 16 Santa Clara at home by a final score of 5-1.
On Sunday, No. 7 Stanford women’s soccer defeated No. 16 Santa Clara at home by a final score of 5-1. Allie Montoya(13:02), Andrea Kitahata (27:55), Elise Evans (30:29), Joelle Jung (46:03), and Milly Bray (89:15) each found the back of the net for the Cardinal while Adee Goulden (88:51) was the lone player to score for the Broncos. Stanford improves to 2-0 on the season while Santa Clara falls to 1-1.
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. Santa Clara-Sunday, August 17th
“Yeah, excellent team performance,” Stanford head coach Paul Ratcliffe said after the match. “Scored a lot of goals, I thought we played really well in spells of the game and Santa Clara is a strong team, so it was a good test for us. So just very proud of the group to get two wins this weekend.”
This match was one-way traffic from the jump as Stanford came after Santa Clara like they owed them money. For the second straight match, Allie Montoya set the tone by scoring the first goal of the match for the Cardinal, finding the bottom left of the goal off her right foot thanks to an assist from Jasmine Aikey. That gave the Cardinal a 1-0 lead at the 13:02 mark.
“I think prior to the game, just going in with the mindset of I’m going to score today,” Montoya said. “And my team has made that really easy. Just, we’ve been playing really well and the team’s just been playing well together. Good chemistry. We were able to find the net early on in the game.”
“Yeah, I think Allie’s got a lot of confidence,” Ratcliffe said of Montoya. “Her energy level is high and she’s wanting the ball and she’s getting the ball and she’s driving at the fence and causing problems and I think just her movement off the ball, the couple of the goals she’s scoring, she’s getting into great positions and tucking them away.”
At 27:55, Andrea Kitahata got fouled, setting up a penalty kick. She would find the lop left of the net to make it 2-0. Not long after that, Stanford would get a corner kick at 30:11, helping to set up their third goal of the match. Evans would fire a shot that was saved at the bottom of the net. Off that save on the rebound, Evans found the bottom right of the goal off her right foot, making it 3-0 at 30:29. Stanford would keep that 3-0 lead going into halftime.
Early on in the second half, Joelle Jung found the top right of the goal off her right foot thanks to an assist from Montoya. That made it 4-0 for Stanford at 46:03. Stanford now had an ironclad grip on the match.
“Joelle played me an awesome ball,” Montoya recalled. “All I had to do was just do a little touch to her and she did the rest of it.”
Very late in the second half, Adee Goulden scored for Santa Clara at 88:51 of an assist from Leah O’Brien, making it 4-1. Stanford was clearly frustrated as they were bummed to give up the four-goal differential. However, they quickly regained that four-goal differential as Milly Bray scored an unassisted goal at 89:15, making it 5-1 as she found the top right of the goal off her left foot. 5-1 would end up being the final score.
“We’ve just been working really hard,” Montoya said of their offensive success. “We know that we’re ready for these matches and as soon as we score one, we know that we want to keep going and we’re never going to take our foot off the gas…Ideal season is just winning the natty and putting the nation on notice every game.”
“Yeah, a little deflated that we conceded a goal,” Ratcliffe admitted. “So, I was a little disappointed with that when we had a convincing win. And then for her [Bray] to get that last goal to kind of put an exclamation point that it was a convincing win, I think was meaningful and Milly’s working so hard and doing so well for us. That’s her first goal ever at Stanford, so really excited for her.”
For Stanford, this was a fantastic performance. Matches against Santa Clara are typically decided by one goal as this is one of Stanford’s most fierce rivals. To win by four goals sends a message that they are not messing around this year and that they have more firepower than they did last year. Not only did they win 5-1, Stanford out-shot Santa Clara 28-2 while also having an 8-2 advantage in corner kicks. Just all-around, dominance.
At goalkeeper, Caroline Birkel once again got the start for Stanford, playing the first half while Kaiya Jota played the second half. Ratcliffe was pleased with how both played in the net.
“Caroline was incredible, I thought Kaiya was solid,” Ratcliffe said. “She’s probably very disappointed she conceded a goal, but it happens sometimes. Sometimes a close-range shot, hard to save. But both of the goalkeepers I thought did really well through the weekend.”
Up next for Stanford is a home match against San Diego State on Thursday, August 21st. That will begin at 7:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
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Category: General Sports
