On Friday, No. 3 Stanford women’s soccer defeated UConn 2-1 in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Stanford forward Allie Montoya and midfielder Shae Harvey both scored goals for the Cardinal while UConn defender Anaya Johnson scored the lone goal for the Huskies. Stanford goalkeeper Haley Craig picked up the win in the net for the Cardinal with one save and one goal allowed while UConn goalkeeper Kaitlyn Mahoney was the losing goalkeeper for the Huskies with seven saves and two goals allowed.
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. UConn-Friday, November 22nd
“Yeah, very proud of the team,” Stanford head coach Paul Ratcliffe said after the match. “They showed great determination to get the result at the end. Scored a couple goals late. When we were down a goal, so they showed great character and yeah, that’s playoff soccer for ya at its best. It was super exciting for us to get the result in the end and couldn’t be more proud of the players.”
UConn got on the board really fast in this one as Anaya Johnson scored at the 10:14 mark as she found the top left of the goal off her right foot to make it a 1-0 lead for the Huskies. Stanford would get back-to-back corner kicks at 38:20 and 38:57 but wasn’t able to capitalize off those opportunities. It would remain a 1-0 lead for UConn at halftime.
The one piece of good news for Stanford at halftime was in addition to having two corner kicks to UConn’s zero, they also outshot UConn 11-5. They were creating more chances. They just hadn’t gotten one to fall yet.
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s any panic from us,” Stanford defender Elise Evans said. “I think we’ve spoken about these situations and what our mindset is going to be. All different scenarios. So we’ve talked about this scenario, we’ve been in this situation before, and we know that we’re such a great team and we have so many weapons and I think our mindset is we’re going to keep going and it doesn’t matter. It’s still 0-0 game for us. We’re going to go after one and keep going after another.
“That’s still our same mindset even if we’re up a goal we’re still going to keep going and pushing for more no matter what. So even when we’re down a goal it’s still the same thing. We just gotta get one more goal than we would before, but I think we’re always going to keep pushing and I think we’re just coming together as a team and talking about how we’re going to continue to motivate each other positively and just keep playing after the game.”
Stanford would get a corner kick at 57:49 in the second half but wasn’t able to score off that chance. However, Stanford’s pressure finally led to goal at 85:57 as Shae Harvey found the bottom left of the goal off her left foot off an assist from Allie Montoya. That tied it up 1-1. Then, just a few minutes later, Allie Montoya got a goal of her own at 89:49 as she found the bottom right of the goal off her right foot to make it a 2-1 lead for Stanford. Video replay checked to see if it was a goal and confirmed it. With only 11 seconds left, UConn wasn’t able to even things up. 2-1 Stanford would win.
“Yeah, I knew we were going to score the whole time and I knew it was coming,” Montoya said. “And I saw Lizzie hit a great shot and the keeper hit it back to me and I just knew it was going in the back of the net.”
The big lesson for Stanford in this match is if you keep attacking, good things are likely to finally happen. Stanford would have preferred to score sooner and not have to be scoreless with under ten minutes to go, but in the end they got the goals they needed. Stanford out-shot UConn 27-5 for the match and was +3 in corner kicks (4-1). With those kinds of numbers, you’re likely to win more often than not.
Up next for Stanford is a Round of 16 match against No. 2 Arkansas in a true road match on Sunday, November 24th. Match will start at 4:00 PM PT on ESPN+.
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