Stanford’s tough luck at home continued on Saturday against Notre Dame, as the Cardinal offense failed to convert in the red zone in the team’s 21-14 loss to the Irish. Senior kicker Derek Belch missed four field goals while drops by wideouts Evan Moore and Richard Sherman on Stanford’s last two plays of the game sealed the loss for the Cardinal.

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Sammy Abusrur

Junior running back Anthony Kimble fends off a Fighting Irish defender during Saturday’s 21-14 loss. Kimble was one of the few bright spots for Stanford, scoring both of the team’s touchdowns.

Stanford (3-8, 2-6 Pac-10) fell to the equally lowly Irish (3-9) in a game marred by penalties, turnovers and miscues by both teams throughout. Still, the Cardinal found itself in a first-and-goal situation at Notre Dame’s 10 yard-line in the contest’s final minute with a chance to tie the game at 21. Senior quarterback T.C. Ostrander, filling in for injured sophomore Tavita Pritchard, threw two straight would-be touchdown strikes to senior Moore and sophomore Sherman, but neither was caught, and the Irish came away with the win.

Coach Jim Harbaugh did not address print media following the game, leaving his players to describe the ugly outcome to an uglier game on their own.

“It was a great pass, and I didn’t make the play when it mattered,” Moore said of his chance to tie the game on Stanford’s final drive. “[It was] right in my hands, great pass, dropped.”

Belch, who has been consistent most of the year, was at a loss for words in describing the worst kicking game of his collegiate career.

“I’m just dumbfounded, to be honest with you,” he said. “If you’d told me I was going to go 0-4 in a game, I don’t care how long the kicks are, I can’t think of any comparison to that at all.”

The Cardinal defense again had issues stopping the run, as Notre Dame’s Robert Hughes rushed for 136 yards on 18 carries. Hughes keyed what turned out to be Notre Dame’s game-winning drive in the fourth quarter with four straight rushes for 55 yards and a touchdown, including a long run of 44 that carried the Irish to Stanford’s 8-yard line.

Prior to Notre Dame’s decisive drive, however, the Cardinal defense played its way out of difficult situations again and again, notching four turnovers and five sacks on the day. But a Pritchard interception inside Stanford’s own 20-yard line led to an easy score for the Fighting Irish and helped Charlie Weis’ squad make it to the half with the score tied at 14.

“I thought the defense really gave us a chance today,” Moore said. “I felt like Notre Dame was basically saying, ‘Here you go, try to win it,’ and we didn’t take it, we didn’t even [make] a nice run at it.”

Offensively, Jim Harbaugh’s Cardinal seemed to have difficulty finding its rhythm all game long, a task that became all the more difficult when Pritchard had to leave the game after taking a brutal clothesline shot to the head at the end of a 19-yard scramble late in the third quarter.

Ostrander took over under center for the Cardinal offense and went 5-for-9 for 50 yards, but he had to come out himself for parts of two drives in the fourth quarter when a hit to his elbow left him unable to properly grip the football. Despite early struggles, however, Ostrander appeared to give the Cardinal a chance to win, completing two straight passes on Stanford’s final drive before the drops by Moore and Sherman.

Senior receiver Mark Bradford and junior running back Anthony Kimble also put up solid efforts in the Cardinal loss. Bradford was the only Stanford player to catch more than one pass, hauling in seven for 111 yards, while Kimble carried 20 times for a healthy four yards-per-carry average and a pair of touchdowns.

Stanford will look to close out its season on a winning note next Saturday, as archrival Cal visits the Farm for its first crack at the Cardinal in the new Stanford Stadium. A win would give the the team just its second home victory in the past two seasons and its first over a conference opponent.

“We’ve got to get ready for Cal now,” Pritchard said in the subdued Cardinal locker room after the game. “That’s the biggest game of our season; [we can] get something good going at the end of the year and let it carry over into next season, [we can] get some momentum going into the offseason.”