Recap: No. 1 Stanford Women’s Soccer advances to College Cup Final
On Friday in Kansas City, No. 1 Stanford women’s soccer defeated No. 11 Duke 1-0 to advance to the College Cup Final. Earlier in the day, No. 6 Florida State defeated No. 5 TCU 1-0 in the other semifinal match to advance to the College Cup Final.
VIDEO: Game Recap: Stanford Women’s Soccer vs. Duke (College Cup Semifinals)
VIDEO: Stanford Women’s Soccer Postgame Press Conference-Duke (College Cup Semifinals)
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. Duke-Friday, December 5th
“Hard fought victory,” Stanford head coach Paul Ratcliffe said after the match. “Really proud of the team’s character and the resiliency they showed. Incredible free kick goal by Jasmine. Was the difference in the match at the end of the day and just couldn’t be more proud of how the defense played, the whole team, very hard fought, hard fought win.”
Duke got the first two corner kicks of the match at 4:52 and 6:52. However, Stanford was still able to score within the first 10 minutes at the 9:02 mark as senior Jasmine Aikey scored off a free kick that was taken just outside of the box. She was able to bend it like Beckham into the bottom left corner of the net. That made it a 1-0 lead for the Cardinal, which would end up being the final score.
“Yeah, I think really what I rely on when I’m about to take a free kick is just the knowledge that I’ve taken a thousand of these and it’s just one more,” Aikey said of her goal. “It’s not any different. Yeah. I think I saw her cheating a little bit or the near post was open. I just thought, you know, let me just try to get it there. But really it was just like relying on stuff I had done previously. Nothing special.”
As for how the rest of the match played out, Duke would get corner kicks at 10:43, 19:41, 54:05, and 73:56, unable to capitalize on any of those chances. If you include the corner kicks at 4:52 and 6:52, that’s six corner kicks the Blue Devils had. As for Stanford, all four of their corner kicks came in the second half: 49:12, 57:35, 59:53, and 68:52. Duke actually had the edge in corner kicks 6-4 for the entire match. However, Stanford had the edge in total shots 23-11 and shots on goal 8-2.
Duke’s goalkeeper Caroline Dysart had three saves on the night while Stanford’s goalkeeper Caroline Birkel had two saves. Both goalkeepers played great. Unfortunately for Dysart, Aikey fired an unreal shot to get the lone goal of the night off a free kick. There were two yellow cards on the night. Duke as a team got a yellow card at 48:55 while Stanford freshman Y-Lan Nguyen got a yellow card at 73:47.
“Birkel playing as a freshman goalkeeper, that could be a position that is very stressful and maybe nerve-wracking in these big moments,” Stanford senior defender Elise Evans said. “And especially when it’s cold out there, she’s just standing there, doesn’t really get to run. And then she came up huge with some big saves in big moments and I back her any time.”
At the end of the day, even thought they would have liked to have tacked on another goal for insurance purposes, the 1-0 final score was all that Stanford needed and once you are in the tournament, you’ll take any win you can get no matter how you get it done.
Stanford will play against Florida State for the national championship on Monday, December, 8th at 4:00 PM PT on ESPNU. Stanford defeated Florida State 2-1 in Tallahassee back on Thursday, October 16th, so that should give them some extra confidence going in.
“We’ve been talking a lot about we’ve been here before, we don’t just want to come here to have a fun experience, but this is a business trip for us and we’ve worked so hard in the offseason and this whole preseason and the season leading up to this that we didn’t just want to just come here, have a fun experience,” Evans said. “We want to have a fun time, but win some games while we’re doing that as well.”
“This might differ for some people, but for me, like I always go into every single, I mean, Paul can tell you, little game in practice like it’s the end of the world,” Aikey added. “So it’s going to be the same mindset of it’s just another game for me because in every game, I’m like always just hyped to the max. So, just really excited to go out there one more time with the girls and yeah, play my last game as a college player.”
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