In its last match before opening Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) competition this weekend, the Stanford women’s lacrosse team played a thrilling match at home against Hofstra. It took three overtimes for the No. 11 Cardinal (6-4, 0-0 MPSF) to pull out a 14-13 win over the Pride.

Hofstra wasn’t the Cardinal’s only competition—both teams had to contend with driving rain throughout the game, and conditions worsened as competition went on.

Though Stanford trailed 9-7 at the half, the Cardinal battled back to take an 11-10 lead in the second half. Hofstra fought back and took a 12-11 lead, before a goal from senior Julie Christy tied the game at 12-12 and sent the game into overtime.

In the first overtime, the Pride took a one-goal lead early before redshirt junior Lauren Schmidt scored her fourth goal of the game to tie it at 13-13. The first overtime ended with the score still tied, sending the game into sudden-death overtime.

After a hard-fought second overtime in which neither team managed to score, the teams advanced to a third overtime period. Midway through the period, senior Claire Hubbard scored the final goal of the game, giving Stanford the win.

Even more importantly, the Cardinal will have momentum heading into this weekend’s first MPSF matches on the road. Today, Stanford will play Fresno State in Fresno, Calif., before coming back to the Bay to take on California in Berkeley, Calif., on Sunday.

Fresno State should not provide much of a challenge to the Cardinal. The Bulldogs (0-7, 0-0 MPSF) have not won a game yet all season. The game is also the conference opener for Fresno State.

Cal (3-6, 0-1 MPSF) will provide a stiffer challenge for Stanford, but should still fall to the Cardinal. The Golden Bears lost its first conference game in February to UC-Davis and will play its second MPSF game of the season on Friday against Denver before taking on Stanford.