WFH: Stanford 2 Monmouth 1 - Printable Version
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WFH: Stanford 2 Monmouth 1 - Viking_Guy - 11-10-2019
#17 ranked Cardinal defeats #20 Monmouth 2-1 on Monmouth's home turf to clinch the America East Conference championship and secure a bid to the NCAA tournament.
Important because the field hockey tournament only has 18 spots, with 10 reserved for auto-qualifiers, 3 of which will be lower ranked than Stanford. So #17 is right on the bubble for an at-large berth, and losing to #20 could very well have put the Cardinal on the outside looking in.
Stanford's star, Corinne Zanolli, scored early in the run of play, despite being shadowed by three or more Hawk defenders throughout the game. And really, the Cardinal dominated throughout - the final totals were outshooting Monmouth 16-2 (12-1 on goal), and earning 10 penalty corners to the Hawks' 3.
But it was still only 1-0 at half, and Monmouth equalized in the opening two minutes of the second half on a penalty corner of their own to knot the game at 1.
After the goal, however, Stanford turned the dominance up a notch. In the final 28 minutes or so, it felt like Monmouth had offensive possession in Stanford's end for a total of about two minutes. They would break the midfield stripe, dribble in, and turn the ball over. They did have a couple of breakaway opportunities, mostly because Stanford's players migrated upfield as the ball stayed in the Hawks end.
And those breakaway opportunities were scary, because Stanford just couldn't put in a second goal. Even as their dominance turned up a notch in the fourth quarter, Monmouth's keeper and defense were turning away everything. Zanolli drew a yellow card after being checked to the ground following a penalty corner shot with about 12:30 remaining, and Stanford had a player advantage for 5 minutes. They also had 3 penalty corners in a row, and came away empty.
When the teams came even, I was starting to feel like I felt in the women's soccer game at Pepperdine; that the field hockey goddesses were against the Cardinal this day. But as Monmouth tried to build some even-sided offense, a takeaway by Stanford led to another body-check by a Monmouth defender as the Cardinal tried to counter-attack. Another yellow card, another five-minute player advantage.
But Stanford had problems getting out of its own end - long passes forward to try to break the Hawks' line were off-target or intercepted, and Monmouth got into Stanford's shooting circle a couple of times.
Finally, with about 2:18 left, Stanford drew another penalty corner. The ball deflected out over the endline, but had hit a Hawks player's body, drawing a second penalty corner. That one also deflected, and the officials signaled no new penalty corner, that the ball had hit a stick - until the fourth official on the sideline argued that it had hit a Monmouth foot. Third penalty corner.
The initial settle wasn't great, and Stanford tipped the ball to the right side of the crease, where it was redirected to the left and put home by defender Sarah Johnson, Stanford's second-leading assist player, for a 2-1 lead with under 2 minutes remaining.
Monmouth threw everyone forward, but Stanford calmly took the ball into the corner, and drew foul after foul, with about six or seven restarts in a row being taken immediately back into the corner. The Hawks simply couldn't get the ball away from the Cardinal, and the clock bled out.
The auto-qualification in all likelihood eliminates Monmouth.
I'm very happy for senior goalie Kelsey Bing, who has been an absolute star between the pipes, and has kept Stanford in games, and outright won them through her performance in shootouts, for the last four years. And also Zanolli, who has basically cemented her place as the best attacking and perhaps best player in Stanford field hockey history. She has 30 goals this season, leading the NCAA, and I'm thinking that scoring 55% of an NCAA tournament teams goals in a season has got to be some kind of record.
Selection show for the tourney is at 7 pm PT tonight live-streamed at NCAA.com.
Go Card!
VG
A bit more ranking context:
By the current RPI, Stanford (#18 in RPI, #17 in coaches' poll):
- Won against #8 Syracuse, #12 Michigan, at #17 Harvard, at #23 Ohio State, and at #21 Monmourh and against #30 Albany in the AEC tourney.
- Lost to #4 Connecticut, at #5 Duke, at #6 Louisville, home to #14 Northwestern, at #19 Wake Forest, and (the worst result of the season) at #35 New Hampshire.
Right now, I'd say Stanford is the #14 or #15 seed, based on the AQs that are lower-ranked: #26 Fairfield out of the NEC, #28 American out of the Patriot League, and #40 Miami-Ohio out of the MAC. The difference between those two seeds is playing in a play-in game or not.
The NCAA tournament play-in system is strange; you would expect the play-in game participants to be the lowest ranked teams in the field, and the winners of those games to play the #1 and #2 overall seeds. That's what happened with Stanford two years ago; they lost to Miami of Ohio at home 2-1, and the Redhawks went on to play at #2 North Carolina. But last season, the play in games fed into #1 North Carolina and #4 Duke. We'll see what happens tonight, but I'd rather have a play-in game against one of the three AQs to play say #4 UConn then be a slightly higher seed and play my first game at #2 Maryland.
VG
RE: WFH: Stanford 2 Monmouth 1 - Viking_Guy - 11-10-2019
One more update - I didn't even check, but #2 Maryland lost in the Big X semis to host #24 Penn State 1-0. Penn State is playing for the championship and a berth in the tourney right now against #10 Iowa. So Stanford's automatic bid is even more important - if Penn State wins, I would bet that either #12 Michigan or #14 Northwestern gets left out of the tourney.
VG
RE: WFH: Stanford 2 Monmouth 1 - Viking_Guy - 11-10-2019
Stanford plays the play-in with Miami of Ohio (again) to face the #1 overall seed North Carolina.
And they again get to host it at home. The NCAA rejiggered the S-curve seedings so that American would play at Fairfield, with the winner playing #2 overall Connecticut, rather than have what should have been the "15" seed as the best AQ in the play-in lined up to play UConn.
In any case, here's hoping Stanford can reverse the loss two years ago, when they lost the play-in game at home to the same Redhawks.
Doesn't help to have only one really good field hockey team west of Iowa, and Iowa the only really good field hockey team west of Chicago.
VG
RE: WFH: Stanford 2 Monmouth 1 - Hurlburt88 - 11-11-2019
Good stuff! I had not been paying attention to this. Thanks VG!