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Stanford women's golf team started the winter/spring season with a victory in the Northrup Grumman Regional Challenge at Palos Verdes GC in the LA area. They defeated a strong field that included #1 USC, #2 Texas, #3 Florida, defending national champ Arizona and perennial contender UCLA. Coach Anne Walker was delighted by the result and called it one of the top five wins in program history.
https://gostanford.com/news/2019/2/5/wom...-wins.aspx
This victory was the first Stanford win in a full field regular season event in 2 years. In a game where confidence and mental toughness can have such a big influence on the outcome, this is a good sign. You don't win a national championship in February, but it definitely confirms that Stanford has the capability to contend this season if everyone stays healthy. Stanford also gained valuable experience on the same course that will host the Pac 12 championship in April.
Stanford was led by Andrea Lee who won the individual competition. She is now 1 win from tying the all time Stanford record of 8 career victories held by Mhairi McKay.
The lineup for this tournament included Lee, Albane Valenzuela, Mika Liu, Ziyi Wang and Kelsey Zeng (junior, junior, soph, junior, soph). It did not include either of the accomplished frosh on the roster, Aline Krauter or Calista Reyes. I expect that the competition in qualifying, especially for the 4th and 5th spots, will remain intense throughout the season.
Indoor Nationals is finally here, this Friday through Monday in Seattle, Washington. Matches will be held at both the Nordstrom Tennis Center (on UW's campus) and at the Seattle Tennis Club.
The details
It's a single-elimination tournament with a consolation draw, and a guarantee of three matches, so if you lose the first two, you'll get an added match with another team. The top 8 teams are seeded and placed in a traditional bracket format, and their first-round opponents are drawn at random. Everyone will get three matches except for the two teams who reach the championship, who get four.
Washington qualified as the host school, while the other 15 teams made it through a 4-team regional (ITA Kick-Off Weekend) a couple of weeks ago.
The draws
(1) Stanford (3-0) vs. #18 LSU (6-0)
(8) Texas (3-1) vs. #12 Northwestern (3-2)
(4) Vanderbilt (3-1) vs. Washington (5-0)
(5) Georgia (3-0) vs. #14 N.C. State (6-0)
(3) Duke (5-0) vs. #16 Ohio State (3-1)
(6) Pepperdine (2-0) vs. #10 Syracuse (4-2)
(2) UNC (6-0) vs. #9 Oklahoma State (4-3)
(7) UCLA (4-0) vs. #15 South Carolina (4-1)
Losses in that group:
Vanderbilt lost to UNC
Texas lost to Michigan
Oklahoma State lost to Duke, UCLA, and Arkansas
Syracuse lost to UVA and BC
Northwestern lost to Kansas and Vanderbilt
South Carolina lost to USC
Ohio State lost to Texas (but it was 4-3, with 4 singles matches going to a third set)
Here's a link to the draws and other tournament information:
https://www.slam.tennis/ita/indoors/2019/ncaaw
https://www.itatennis.com/ITA/Events/Eve...f21ea2407c
Order of Play:
Friday, February 8th (all times PT)
9am: Duke vs. Ohio State and Pepperdine vs. Syracuse
Noon: UNC vs. Oklahoma State and UCLA vs. South Carolina
3:30pm: Stanford vs. LSU and Texas vs. Northwestern
6:30pm: Vanderbilt vs. Washington and Georgia vs. N.C. State
Analysis:
No draw at Indoor Nationals is an easy one, but being the #1 seed has some advantages. As far as first round matches go, Stanford gets #18 LSU, who is undefeated, but who has also not really been challenged yet (LSU beat a just-OK Clemson team in the first round of ITA Kickoff Weekend, and then got Tennessee, who had upset Florida State the day before). After all the worrying about whether we'd get some repeats of some regular season matches at this tournament, we could play Texas and Vanderbilt consecutively in this tournament, when we'll see them at Taube in the next few weeks anyway. That's something of a disappointment, but wins in those matches will still be really valuable for our ranking.
Stanford may be the #1 seed, but nobody has a better win this season than UNC, who beat #2 Vanderbilt in Nashville. Not much of a dark horse pick to guess the #2 seed might win the tournament, but they look to have it together this year.
If you made me pick the bracket, I'll take chalk in the first round (Texas is the only seed I think might get upset), and that's where things get interesting. Duke-Pepperdine and Vanderbilt-Georgia in particular should both be terrific matches. I'll never pick against Stanford, but this will be a fun ride.
Can I follow along?
Yes! There will be live scoring through Tennis Ticker, and live streaming of certain matches (the ones held on campus, not at the Seattle Tennis Club) here:
https://gohuskies.com/sports/2018/2/8/wo...tream.aspx. Here's the live scoring link: http://scores.tennisticker.de/usa/ita/wi...ml?lid=200
Rankings Update
Team:
No new ITA team rankings this week, but the USTA's rankings are out, with Stanford holding onto the top spot there: https://www.usta.com/en/home/stay-curren...-2019.html
Elsewhere in the Pac-12, UCLA is #5, USC is #20, and Cal is tops in the "others receiving votes" group, so effectively #26.
Singles:
New ITA singles rankings out this morning, and it looks like they finally counted Northwest Regionals, but more than that, Stanford has eight players in the rankings, and that's just nasty:
14. Emily Arbuthnott (up from 16)
23. Michaela Gordon (up from 103)
37. Janice Shin (up from 51)
44. Emma Higuchi (down from 38)
46. Melissa Lord (up from unranked)
57. Caroline Lampl (up from unranked)
68. Niluka Madurawe (up from unranked)
80. Sara Choy (up from unranked)
Doubles:
11. Lampl/Yee (down from 7)
13. Arbuthnott/Gordon (steady)
28. Yee/Madurawe (up from unranked)
31. Lord/Madurawe (up from unranked)
Stanford is picked 8th Oregon last. Oregon just added 5 new players. I gather they were already in school
https://gostanford.com/news/2019/2/5/sof...gann__none
The Athletic has a piece on the class of 2015. Not sure if this is behind the paywall or not, but I don’t think I’m giving too much away by saying that Stanford way outperformed its class ranking based on the metrics used in the story.
https://theathletic.com/797789/2019/02/0...ars-later/
We're halfway through the men's Pac-12 BB conference schedule, and the only things that are clear is that UW is winning the regular season conference championship and WSU and C.al are really bad.
There are three teams at 6-3, three at 5-4 and Stanford and UO are tied for eighth at 4-5. At 11-10 overall Stanford is not making the NCAA without winning the Pac-12 tournament and we're probably not making the NIT.
However, with a healthy Cormac Ryan and continued inconsistency from opponents not named UW, I could see Stanford working its way up to the top half of the conference standings for the second year in a row. We have roadies against the Oregon and Arizona schools and home games against the LA and Washington schools as well as hosting C.al in the regular season finale. A "good" scenario in my mind would be wins versus:
UO--currently tied with us at 4-5
UA--only a games ahead of us at 5-4
U$C--1-5 in road games
UCLA--2-4 in road games
WSU and C.al.
It's depressing to set the bar so low, but it could be worse.
I was curious about the price for season ticket renewals. In a recent email, the AD mentioned that renewals would begin 2/7, but there was no word on price. So I checked on GoStanford, and to my surprise (!!), football season ticket prices will hold steady from 2018.
I was pleasantly surprised. Because there is a loaded schedule with 7 home games, this effectively translates into a 14% price cut for (generally) much more attractive games. Even parking passes will cost the same for 7 games.
https://gostanford.com/sports/2019/1/30/...ewals.aspx
It makes me curious about what's happening at other schools, particularly Pac-12 teams. I wonder whether the poor attendance at the Clemson-Alabama championship game made the AD recognize the weak college football demand in the Bay Area.
Has anything been reported or does anyone know anything about the Spring football schedule?
The (terrible) official Stanford Football website isn't doing a great job of feeding fan interest in Spring football. It's Feb. 4 and I have seen and heard nothing about it or what the schedule is. I may be able to catch a practice on March 9 if there is one that day, as I will be in the South Bay then.
http://www.espn.com/womens-college-baske...acketology
Still a 2 seed - in ND's bracket. 7 pac12 teams
Once again, don't be fooled by the teaser. I've posted my report on Saturday's Cal game at http://fbceventnews.blogspot.com/