No. 18 field hockey (11-6, 3-0 AEC) will play UC Davis (7-8, 2-1 AEC) at home in their regular season finale and senior night. The Cardinal have already clinched the America East West Division title and will be the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament next week.
Before the game, senior midfielder Phoebe Crosthwaite, senior attackers Emma Alderton and Jessica Welch and senior goalkeeper Kelsey Bing will be honored. This senior class has had a 52-26 record in the past four seasons, including a 17-4 record in conference play. They have captured two America East conference titles in 2016 and 2017. In those same two seasons they made appearances in the NCAA tournament.
Unfortunately, the star senior goalkeeper will miss Friday’s game because she will be playing in an important match for Team USA as they try to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games. No. 13 USA will be playing against No. 9 India in Bhubaneswar, India for an FIH (International Hockey Federation) Olympic qualifier. This match is the last chance for both countries to qualify for the Olympics. In her place, sophomore goalkeeper Hannah Santos will likely fill in between the posts.
Junior attacker Corinne Zanolli can be expected to continue her streak of stellar performances in games this season when the Cardinal take on UC Davis. As she has for much of the season, Zanolli leads the NCAA in goals with 25 scored so far this season. In Stanford’s last game, a 3-2 victory against Cal in Berkeley, Zanolli notched all three of goals in her fourth hat-trick of the season. Last season, she broke the school record for single-season goals by scoring 26 times. Being only one score away from that mark, Zanolli seems to be on pace to break that mark again this season.
UC Davis will likely not pose too much of a challenge to Stanford on Friday. In their last match, an away game for the Cardinal, Stanford defeated the Aggies 3-1. However, UC Davis is just coming off of an exciting victory against Cal on Oct. 30 in which they beat the Golden Bears 2-1 in a shootout. Although a Cal loss in anything is always a happy occasion for Stanford, the Aggies may be carrying a little more momentum off of their win than the Cardinal would prefer. Their win on Wednesday was the first time the Aggies had beaten a conference opponent since they last beat Cal in 2016. Stanford, however, has dominated UC Davis in recent years. The last time the Aggies defeated the Cardinal was in 2013.
Stanford plays UC Davis at home on Friday at 6 p.m. P.T.
Contact Niles Egan at negan ‘at’ stanford.edu.