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NewsvineThe regular season may have been a roller coaster ride, but the Cardinal women’s lacrosse team seems to have knack for getting things done when it counts. Stanford won its fourth straight Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) title on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley after defeating Denver 9-8, avenging an earlier loss to the Pioneers back on April 20.
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The game was not over until the final nine seconds, however, when senior goalkeeper Laura Shane stopped a shot from Denver’s Karen Morton. The Cardinal was led by freshman attacker Sarah Flynn and sophomore midfielder Julie Christy on offense; both had hat tricks on the day, combining for six of the team’s nine goals.
“We knew Denver was going to be a challenge and that they would put up a fight at the end but going out with four MPSF titles in a row is perfect,” said Shane. “I couldn’t really ask for our lacrosse careers to end any better than that. It’s just super exciting.
“I think we came out with a lot of confidence this time,” Shane said. “We knew what their game plan was going to be and we had a much better idea of how to shut that down. We just came out and put together a full game and we came out on top of them.”
Shane was honored as the tournament’s MVP, but was quick to praise the efforts of her teammates.
“It’s a really nice honor but I think it’s really just reflective of the whole team’s effort and the defense just played unbelievable the whole weekend so that makes my job a whole lot easier,” she said.
Senior attacker Megan McClain, senior defender Katharine Fox and sophomore midfielder Dana Lindsay were all named to the all-tournament team.
The Cardinal took a 5-2 to lead to halftime and continued its strong play in the second half, nearly putting the Pioneers away with a 9-5 lead and only five minutes remaining. Denver came back with a flurry of three goals, however, and had a chance to tie before Shane’s save with nine seconds left.
Saturday’s victory over the Pioneers capped off an impressive tournament run for the Cardinal. Despite going only 3-2 in conference play, Stanford went through both Cal and Denver — teams it had already lost to earlier in the season — to claim the conference tournament title once again.
Stanford now looks to hear from the NCAA selection committee, which will decide whether the team’s body of work this year is good enough to earn a bid to the 16-team NCAA Tournament, which starts later this week. The MPSF is not a strong enough conference to warrant an automatic bid, so the Cardinal will have to hope for one of the eight at-large bids awarded every year by the committee.
In the previous three years that the team won the MPSF tournament, it was only invited to the national tournament once. Stanford’s regular season does not particularly stand out, as the team is 12-8 overall and finished only 3-2 in the conference games leading up to this past weekend’s tournament.
That said, this year’s team may be able to make a stand with wins over top powers such as Penn and Notre Dame. In any case, though, the Cardinal certainly finished its season strong, regardless of whether the team is invited to the NCAA Tournament or not.
“Besides going to the NCAA Tournament, we couldn’t ask to go out in any better way,” said Shane, who may have played in her last game in a Stanford uniform on Saturday. “It’s really been an incredible four years with a really incredible team and we’re super excited to have been the MPSF champions for four years.”