Stanford wrestling travels to Reno Tournament of Champions; women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer earn postseason awards; Cardinal appears in men’s and women’s gymnastics polls; men’s volleyball picked fourth in MPSF; seven softball games to be televised
For most teams in the country, qualifying for the NCAA semifinals would make for a successful season. But for the defending national champions, anything but another title would be a disappointment.
The Cardinal (20-1-1) rode two goals from redshirt junior Courtney Verloo to defeat No. 17 Santa Clara 2-1 in Friday’s second round match and then kept up its dominance with a 3-0 win over upstart Denver on Sunday. Stanford will face No. 6 UCLA in the quarterfinals.
On a cold Friday night at Cagan Stadium, the No. 1 women’s soccer team heated up quickly. Seven minutes into the game, sophomore midfielder Alex Doll opened the scoring and from that point on, the Cardinal (18-1-1) never looked back on its way to a 3-0 win over Idaho State in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
After a tight victory over rival Cal in Berkeley last weekend granted the No. 1 Cardinal (17-1-1 Pac-12) its fourth consecutive undefeated Pac-12 season, Stanford must now refocus as it turns its eyes toward the real prize, an NCAA title. On Friday the defending national champions and overall No. 1 seed welcome Idaho State (11-5-3) for the first round of the NCAA tournament.
The Pac-12 women’s soccer awards were announced on Wednesday, and as expected, the top-ranked Cardinal were well represented. Five players were named to the all-Pac-12 first team, and two each were named to the all-Pac-12 honorable mention and the Pac-12 All-Freshman team.
The No. 1 Cardinal (14-1-1, 8-0) faces a season-defining weekend as it heads to Los Angeles to play the University of Southern California (5-8-3, 2-4-2) Friday and No. 2 University of California Los Angeles (14-0-2, 7-0-1) Sunday. The matchup with the Bruins will be the pivotal match in Stanford’s season up to this point: losing will guarantee that it falls in the rankings, but winning will more or less assure a fourth-consecutive Pac-12 victory.
Reshirt junior forward Courtney Verloo wins Pac-12 Player of the Week in women’s soccer and women’s basketball’s former Jeanette Pohlen ’11 and the Indiana Fever win the WNBA Championship.