Carrying a four-game winning streak off of wins over Albany and Stony Brook, No. 15 Stanford women’s lacrosse (4-1, 0-0 PAC-12) gets its first taste of PAC-12 competition this season against No. 23 Colorado (1-3, 0-0 PAC-12) on Friday and Oregon (2-3, 0-0 PAC-12) on Sunday. In the former, the Cardinal will be hosting its One Love game to raise awareness around relationship violence. Though Stanford currently holds the record advantage on both teams, these conference games could be critical in determining seeding for the PAC-12 tournament at season’s end.
Colorado’s 1-3 record is deceptive and might cause some to question its ranking within the top 25. The unfortunate reality for the Buffs is that they have only played ranked opponents up to this point and will face their fifth nationally ranked team in the Cardinal on Thursday. The Boulder-based team’s single win came against then-No.14 Virginia Tech while it suffered losses to Florida, Stony Brook and Michigan, all at home.
For direct comparison, the Buffs endured a blowout from Stony Brook, whom Stanford most recently defeated in a 16-13 win at home. Historically, the Cardinal are 6-4 all-time against Colorado but lost both matches last year. However, Stanford would redeem itself in the 2018 PAC-12 tournament with a 15-6 thrashing of its mountain west foe. Regardless of the most recent result between the two teams and Colorado’s lackluster start to the 2019 season, the Cardinal will need to put in a solid performance to extend its win streak to five.
On Sunday, Oregon presents a lesser threat to Stanford, as the Ducks have only played unranked opponents and have lost more games than they have won. The Cardinal are 15-3 all-time against Oregon including seven straight victories over the Eugene natives dating back to 2012. Last time out, Stanford bested Oregon 17-9 at Cagan Field on Senior Day.
Besides its obvious success as a team, firing off four straight wins, Stanford collected two individual awards last week for the efforts of its star players on the East Coast. Sophomore attackers Ali Baiocco and goalkeeper Trudie Grattan combined to sweep the PAC-12 Offensive and Defensive Player of the Week awards for their stellar performances in New York.
Before Thursday’s game against Colorado, the Stanford lacrosse program will host a pre-game clinic and team meal for kids from first to eighth grades as part of a fundraiser for the One Love Foundation. The field lines will be painted blue and players will wear blue warm-up shirts in honor of the organization come game time. First draw control against Colorado is at 6 p.m. The game against Oregon starts at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Contact Andrew Tan at tandrew ‘at’ stanford.edu.