Women’s field hockey suffers setback to Pacific, bounces back against Cal

After a narrow loss to Pacific, the No. 12 Stanford women’s field hockey team (10-5, 2-2 America East) bounced back against archrival Cal and won in decisive fashion. 

On Friday, the Cardinal made the short trip to Stockton, California, to face off against Pacific. The Cardinal outplayed the unranked Tigers statistically, both outshooting and garnering more penalty corners than them.

However, the Tigers were able to capitalize on one of their few chances, scoring the only goal of the game in the 32nd minute off a penalty corner, and held the Cardinal off for the remaining 38 minutes of the contest.

Seniors Clemence Couteau and Jessica Chisholm led the Cardinal’s attacking efforts, but neither one could find the back of the net. Meanwhile, goaltender Dulcie Davies continued her stellar play, making save after save, but let up a costly goal to Tigers freshman Rylee Comeau, as she found the back of the net off a corner from Savannah Burns.

The Cardinal struggled with accuracy on their shots, as only 5 of their 13 shots were on goal. Meanwhile, the Tigers were far more accurate, hitting the target with 8 of their 10 shots. Pacific’s attack was balanced for the duration of the game, while Stanford ramped it up in the second half to try to level the game; despite the Cardinal’s best efforts, Pacific goaltender Laura Pujade was able to hold them off for her third shutout of the season.

Not to be put down for long, the Cardinal showed their resilience on Sunday, dominating unranked Berkeley at home. The defense was locked in, as Davies only had to make 3 saves to record her fourth shutout of the season.  

Matching the defense’s play, the offense thrived through an aggressive first half attack.  The Cardinal recorded a whopping 11 shots in the first half, with three finding the back of the net. Sophomore Sarah Helgeson scored off a rebound, while fellow classmate Katie Keyser recorded her first goal of the season. Just 25 seconds after Keyser’s goal, junior Fran Tew continued her stellar recent play, notching her fifth goal of the season.

The second half the game was all about defense for the Cardinal, as the team only took three shots and looked to preserve its lead.  However, that didn’t stop Couteau from scoring on her only shot of the game.  

The win against Berkeley moved the Cardinal back to .500 in conference play. The Cardinal only play once this coming week, facing unranked UC Davis at home on Friday night. It is the team’s penultimate game before the NCAA tournament, as the Cardinal will host Pacific and have a chance to redeem themselves in the last game of the regular season.

The Cardinal play UC Davis at home on Friday at 6 p.m.

Contact Andrew Bakst at abakst ‘at’ stanford.edu.