Recap: No. 2 Stanford Women’s Soccer dominates Cal to win ACC championship
On Thursday, No. 2 Stanford women’s soccer dominated Cal on the road in Berkeley by a final score of 8-2. Stanford senior midfielder Jasmine Aikey led the way for the Cardinal with two goals and two assists. Stanford won the regular season ACC championship as a result. Stanford finishes out the regular season with a record of 15-1-1 overall and 9-0-1 in the ACC while Cal finishes 8-3-8 overall and 4-2-4 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Cal-Thursday, October 30th
“Yeah, I mean, I think the team knew the ACC championship was on the line and they wanted to win and you could see the desire and the passion and so many different players scored goals and great assists,” Stanford head coach Paul Ratcliffe said after the match. “So overall, just an incredible team effort.”
“Yeah, no, I mean this is what we’ve been working for all season,” Aikey added. “I’m proud of every single person who got on the field and just worked so hard. Yeah, it really feels full circle as well because we won our first trophy, at least my year, the Pac-12 on this field, it’s now the ACC on this field, it’s just great.”
Stanford was scoring all afternoon long to get those eight goals. The first goal came early at 2:13 as Charlotte Kohler found the back of the net off an assist from Shae Harvey. Stanford already had two corner kicks at this point at 1:22 and 1:42, so they were doing a great job of establishing a rhythm from the very beginning.
Cal would then get corner kicks at 8:56 and 13:15, hoping to get momentum going their way. Stanford would then respond with corner kicks at 16:07 and 16:52, doing a nice job of getting the ball back in Cal territory. Shortly thereafter at 19:07, Eleanor Klinger scored for Stanford as Aikey and Kohler got credited with the assist. Then, within a matter of a few minutes, it would be a 3-0 lead as Aikey scored her first goal of the match off an assist from Lizzy Boamah. All things were going Stanford’s way as they took that 3-0 lead into halftime.
Cal would quickly get on the board in the second half as Stanford alum and Cal grad transfer Lumi Kostmayer scored at 48:42 off an assist from Noelle Bond-Flasza and Mia Fontana. That made it a 3-1 match.
“Yeah, happy for Lumi,” Ratcliffe said. “She had a great year for Cal, so I’m really happy that she did well. Everyone on the team really loves Lumi. So we were sad to see her leave Stanford, but happy to see her end her career and do well for Cal.”
“Lumi’s so great,” Aikey added. “I see her standing over there. She got a goal and maybe an assist. She’s someone I’ve really looked up to, her hard work when she was here and now to play against her and see her succeeding, I’m so proud of her and happy for her.”
For the next little while it looked like maybe Cal would narrow the gap further, but then at 60:18, Aikey scored off a penalty kick as she was fouled by Reese Doherty. That made it a 4-1 lead for the Cardinal. At that point, it was clear which way this match was going to go.
At 66:59, Y-Lan Nguyen picked up a yellow card for Stanford, which was the only yellow card of the match. Stanford then made it a 5-1 lead at 74:14 as Andrea Kitahata was able to score off an assist from Aikey. And then at 81:10, Brooke Holden made it a 6-1 lead for the Cardinal as she scored a goal off an assist from Logan Smith.
At this point, it looked like 6-1 would for sure be the final score, but three more goals would be scored before the match ended. Jaden Thomas scored at 83:54 to make it 7-1 and then Bond-Flasza responded for Cal to make it 7-2 off a penalty kick miss. Stanford then added one more match for good measure at 88:50 to make it 8-2 as Erica Grilione scored off an assist from Milly Bray.
“Well, I thought we kept the ball well, good possession, and then we were finding players forward,” Ratcliffe said of their offensive success. “And then the attacking players had a good mentality of going to goal and trying to make a difference and I think then you just see their quality, their quality of our player. I mean Jaden had an amazing goal, Charlotte, her opening goal, Jazzy, they were all incredible, like high level goals. Erica scoring at the end. So, it’s just phenomenal to see the quality of the players coming through on the big stage.”
For Stanford, this was a fantastic victory. From start to finish, they dominated a very solid Cal team that was eager to get a win on senior day. Instead, they put the Bears away and in the process secured an ACC championship. It really couldn’t have gone any better for the Cardinal as they were able to lift a trophy at the end of the match.
“I think we were just a year more experienced,” Ratcliffe said of the difference from last year to this year. “I think we’ve been young. Now we have quite a few seniors and they learned a lot from last year and the year prior. So I think they’ve just grown so much and you saw it on full display today. So many players contributing and so many players with great performances.”
Of course, the star of the game was Jasmine Aikey. She was simply sensational in this match. She did it all for the Cardinal. She was scoring goals, getting assists, and setting the tone with her determination and grit. She was not about to let Cal prevent them from winning an ACC title.
“Yeah, Jazzy was definitely a catalyst,” Ratcliffe said. “She was turning and going to goal, driving to the goal, getting assists, scoring goals. I thought she had a phenomenal game.”
“Yeah, that’s always fun,” Aikey said of beating Cal. “They came out, you know, they gave it their all, and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. And the scoreline doesn’t reflect how hard we had to work to get that result. So just really happy to win it here but obviously would have liked to win it at home as well…I think something I’ve been really working on is just, you know, trusting in myself and my skills and that’s really what I want to do this game. So when I got that free kick, I knew I had to take a chance. Same thing with my first goal.
“So yeah, just really happy with how I’ve been building up to this. It doesn’t come every game. I’ve kinda been goaless for a few games, so just happy it all came together.”
Up next for Stanford is the ACC tournament in Cary, North Carolina. They’ll play in the semifinals against either Florida State or Virginnia on Thursday, November 6th. Kickoff will either be 5:30 PM ET or 8:00 PM ET on ACC Network.
“Yeah, we gotta keep getting better,” Ratcliffe said. “We gotta keep growing. If we want to win the national championship, you gotta learn from each game and continue to push forward and improve. So, I think the key thing is gonna be improvement and continuing to stay healthy and sharp.”
“Yeah, obviously like, this game wasn’t win or go home, but now, you know, the rest pretty much are,” Aikey said looking ahead. “So that’s everything we’ve been working for mentality-wise. I’m glad we’re able to build our confidence going into games where if we do lose, we do go home, so we have to really finish it strong.”
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