This weekend was full of both sweetness and sadness as the women’s lacrosse team honored its veterans in a win against Oregon on Senior Day. The No. 12 Cardinal team came out strong with a 17-9 victory at home, led by none other than the seniors.
The match was the squad’s second-to-last before they begin Pac-12 Tournament play. This is the first time that women’s lacrosse has gotten a Pac-12 Tournament, and the team has been working hard to be top-seeded in order to head into the tournament with an edge. Stanford (12-4, 7-2 Pac-12) will be the second-seeded team in the tournament, allowing it to get one of the two first round byes. The first-seeded team is Colorado (11-4, 8-1).
Nine seniors started the game as a way to thank and celebrate them on Sunday at Stanford Stadium: defender Cameron Park, midfielder Kelly Myers, midfielder Maggie Nick, attacker Sydney Shaw, defender Madison O’Leary, midfielder Sandy Smith, goalkeeper Allie DaCar, midfielder Dillon Schoen and graduate student attacker Kelsey Murray.
Still, the players did not allow themselves to get choked up by emotions and went into the game with an intent to win for the seniors and for all those who will play next year as well. Murray made headlines when she became the player with the most points in Cardinal history, scoring six goals to officially notch more than 300 career points. Murray won herself six assists to top off her excellent play. A hat-trick’s worth of her total goals were scored in the first 10 minutes of play, the first two being 31 seconds apart.
Schoen contributed three goals to the day, while sophomore midfielder Mikaela Watson and freshman attacker Ali Baiocco each scored twice.
Another Murray goal and one of Schoen’s closed the deal at the half with a decisive 10-4 lead, and the two seniors scored again at the beginning of the next half. The opposing team managed to close the lead to 14-6 with less than 20 minutes to spare, but the Cardinal made sure to get the lead back up to 16-6 with 13 minutes left. Junior Monika Sivilli gave the last hoorah with a goal that secured the Cardinal second seed for Pac-12.
But the attacking end was not the only exceptional component of Senior Day. DaCar managed to keep Oregon from scoring for over 16 minutes, giving her teammates on the other side of the field the room to build a solid lead. Freshman goalkeeper Trudie Grattan got some action too, making two saves in six minutes.
O’Leary caused a turnover, won a draw control and had a ground ball and Nick had two ground balls and two draw controls. Junior midfielder Areta Buness got two ground balls, two turnovers and won seven draw controls.
Stanford is set to play Cal on Friday at 7 p.m. at Berkeley.
Contact Laura Sussman at laura111 ‘at’ stanford.edu