To say that the DU women’s lacrosse teams’ victory against No. 19 Stanford on Sunday was big would be well a big understatement. The No. 20 Pioneers suffered a 12-11 defeat at the hand of the Cardinal last season in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship game to end Denver’s hope at a NCAA tournament bid. This time around the Pioneers were out to show that they were not in for a repeat, but a dominant victory and that is what followed as Denver defeated Stanford 13-9 at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium.
It is the first victory for DU at home against Stanford and marks the third win over the Cardinal in their last 13 meetings.
“It was awesome, highest ranked opponent we have beat this season, first time ever beating them at home, so it was really special,” said Head Coach Liza Kelly.
It didn’t look good early for the Pioneers as Stanford put in the first four goals of the game, but junior Karen Morton and sophomore Ali Flury each scored a pair of goals and helped give Denver a 6-4 lead at the break.
The Cardinal started the second half of play on another tear as they scored three goals to re-take the lead 7-6, but Denver said that was enough and DU scored seven straight goals over an 18-minute stretch to take a 13-7 advantage. Stanford added a couple goals in the closing minutes, but the Pioneers held on for the crucial victory.
Senior goalkeeper Becky Childs played the entire game and made eight saves for the Pioneers.
The game marked the last home game of the season for DU, ending their home season with a mark of 8-1.
“Childs played an outstanding game, she came up with some big saves to stop Stanford from coming back,” said Kelly.
To open the weekend Denver defeated conference foe UC Davis 19-8 on Friday afternoon.
The Pioneers scored early and often to take a dominating 14-2 lead at the half. Denver then scored four straight goals to start the second half before the Aggies recorded six straight of their own to helped led to the final score of 19-8.
DU was lead in the contest by junior Steph Coyne, who recorded three goals and three assists, while Flury and Morton each added two goals apiece and sophomore Lexi Sanders, freshman Savannah Khanna, junior Dani Espinosa and sophomore Megan Zeman also each added two goals.
The Pioneers outshot the Aggies 36-16 in the game and Childs and sophomore Katie Gold split time in goal.
DU will play its final regular season games on the road this weekend at California on Saturday afternoon and at St. Mary’s on Sunday.
