On Friday, (2) Stanford women’s soccer defeated (1) BYU 2-0 in the College Cup semifinals, advancing to the championship on Monday night against (1) Florida State. Stanford senior goalkeeper Ryan Campbell was awarded the win in the net with zero goals allowed and three saves while BYU freshman goalkeeper Lynette Hernaez was awarded the loss with two goals allowed and one save.
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. BYU-Friday, December 1st
VIDEO: Stanford Women’s Soccer Postgame Press Conference: BYU | College Cup
“We started very fast,” Stanford head coach Paul Ratcliffe said after the match. “Two exceptional goals. I think as a coach, I don’t know if I was prepared for that. So, become a tactical battle from after probably the first five minutes of the game. And full credit to BYU. They’re a really strong attacking team and made it very difficult on us. And I do think it was in the back of my mind that they had come back against UNC and won 4-3, so that made it even more of a tactical game. But proud of the character of our team and how they stuck together as a group and fought really hard to get the victory in the end.”
Stanford pounced on BYU really quick in this match. BYU has had a problem with giving up early goals and Stanford clearly sought to capitalize on this. At 1:18, Allie Montoya found the top left corner of the net off her right foot thanks to an assist from Jasmine Aikey. The Cardinal now led 1-0.
“Yeah, I think Allie does a lot of work that doesn’t show up on the stats and today it did,” Stanford midfielder Maya Doms said of Montoya. “But, it’s been amazing seeing her come back from her ACL injury and getting back into things and she’s shown that she hasn’t skipped a beat. And yeah, like the past few games I think she’s been frustrated to miss a couple opportunities and I was like saving it for the College Cup aren’t you and she’s like ‘Yeah, I am.’ And I was like ‘Here we go!’ So, here it is.”
Shortly thereafter at 3:59, Maya Doms found the left corner of the goal off her right foot as she fired one past the keeper. It was now a 2-0 lead for the Cardinal. Doms found her cheering teammates and slid into their midst.
“Yeah, I got a great ball,” Doms said of her goal. “I found the midpoint in the midfield. They play a diamond midfield and we knew that if the center back routes and gets the ball, one of the mids would become open. So, Ken played me a great ball, I turned, cut to my right which is my sweet spot, and then just hit it top corner. It was pretty unreal.”
Stanford would not score any more goals the rest of the match while BYU did not score at all in the match. So, all the goalscoring happened within the first four minutes of the match. Pretty crazy.
“The difficult part was it was so early in the game,” Ratcliffe said of having to fend the Cougars off. “So usually you plan more tactical late in a game. But credit to BYU, they’re very potent up front and if the game became really transitional, it would have been difficult for us. So, just trying to keep us compact, stayed together, and then make sure our back line was not too deep. So it was kind of a tricky situation. And they did a really good job of, the first half seemed like a long first half after scoring so early with two goals in five minutes.”
That said, BYU put some pressure on Stanford, forcing them to fend off a really strong attack for the final 86 minutes. BYU nearly scored at the 41:41 mark in the first half as Erin Bailey found Jamie Shepherd for a goal only for it to be called offsides. The Cardinal caught a major break.
BYU then ramped things up further in the second half as Allie Frier fired a shot at 48:29 that was saved by Campbell while Olivia Katoa fired a shot at 49:56 that was also saved by Campbell. Coming fresh off a three goal deficit against North Carolina in which they came back to win 4-3, BYU was not going to go down without a fight.
Later on, at 73:36, Izzi Stratton had a shot aimed at the top of the net for BYU that was also saved by Campbell. The Cougars were hoping to get something to drop, but they just couldn’t find the same magic they did against the Tarheels.
In total, BYU fired 20 shots, three of which were on goal while Stanford had three shots in total, three of which were on goal and two of which were scored. BYU also had four corner kicks while Stanford had three. To add insult to injury, one of the shots the Cougars fired at 56:39 hit the top of the cross bar and wasn’t able to bounce in. The Cougars could have easily scored two goals and tied it up, but instead they came up empty handed. Soccer can be like that. It’s part of what makes it an exciting and frustrating sport all at once.
“Yeah, I think obviously it’s tough sometimes to go up ahead and have to hold the lead,” Stanford defender Kennedy Wesley said. “But, our team really prepared and we had games where we had to play a lot of defense in the past and we knew it would all come down to mentality. We just had to fight and stay strong and stay gritty more than the other team if we wanted to get the result. So, it was overall a really good team collective defensive effort and I think that’s what kinda got us the result.”
“And one of our goals this year was to score early and we finally did that,” Doms added. “We knew that they had one of the best offenses in the whole country and I think we showed that we also had the best defense. So yeah, it was definitely a battle and before the game, Paul kept saying that we were going to struggle and we definitely did, but we showed our character and came out with the result.”
Up next for Stanford is the national championship match against Florida State on Monday, December 4th. That will begin at 3:00 PM PT on ESPNU.
“Yeah, I think the first step would be to recover properly,” Wesley said of facing Florida State. “It’s late now. We have to make sure to get our bodies right tomorrow and Sunday and then again our focus shifts right to Florida State. We’re gonna have to watch the film and tactically get a good understanding of how they play so that we can give them our best showing on Monday. But, at the end of the day in order to be the best you have to beat the best and that’s our goal and hopefully we can just prepare properly with the help of our staff and all the resources we have to give our best shot.”
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