BYU women's soccer offensive line celebrates after a goal scored earlier this season. The Cougars travel to Stanford for round two of the NCAA tournament. ( Ari Davis)
BYU women's soccer travels to Stanford today with hopes to redeem itself against Stanford in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Thursday's game will be the Cougar's second chance against the Cardinals this season. BYU and Stanford were initially set to play on neutral ground in Hawaii early on in preseason play, but rescheduled to play at Stanford over Labor Day due to bad weather conditions. BYU lost to Stanford 1-0 with a goal in the first half. This was its first of only two losses for the season, but a loss BYU learned a lot from.
'It helps us since we've already played them,' BYU Sophomore Maddie Lyons said. 'It gives us that confidence like we know how they play so we're ready to come back and put more goals in the net.'
BYU has made it to the NCAA tournament all but two years since 1997 but has only made it to the sweet 16 round four of those years. The Cardinals, however, are college cup regulars and have been to the championship game of the tournament six of the past seven years. BYU's season record is 16-2-2 against Stanford's record of 17-2-1.
Stanford competes in the Pac-12 conference, but their one loss of the season came from fellow WCC team Santa Clara. BYU tied Santa Clara at Santa Clara during regular season play. Pac-12 announcer J.B. Long has followed Stanford throughout this season and said that he has seen very few teams beat Stanford, but teams that want to try generally have two options.
'This is the eternal dilemma when soccer teams face Stanford: Do you try and beat them at their own game, do you try to deny them the possession that they crave and that they are used to? Or, do you let them have it and try and capitalize on a breakdown with a dynamic counter,' Long said.
BYU head coach Jennifer Rockwood said the key for the Cougars to beat this Stanford team is for her girls to believe in their attack and in their defense.
'I mean, it's hard to slow Stanford down. They are a great possession team, the best that we've seen and so defense is going to be very important for us. We need to make them uncomfortable as much as we can and go at them when we have those opportunities,' Rockwood said.
Junior midfielder Elena Medeiros traps the ball in the first round NCAA game against UVU. Medeiros scored the game-winning goal for the Cougars to advance to round two of the NCAA tournament. ( Maddie Dayton)
The Cougars are excited for the rematch against Stanford and hope to get some retaliation, but Rockwood is determined to treat this game just like any other. While acknowledging Stanford's fine program Rockwood knows that it doesn't matter who or where they play, but that what is important is playing well and moving on in the tournament.
'I think the most important thing is that the girls step onto the field knowing thy can compete with Stanford,' Rockwood said. 'They are such a great team and our girls have to go in believing that we've made great strides and improvements since we played them.'
The winner of the BYU and Stanford match-up on Thursday night will move on to the sweet 16 and will play the winner of the Santa Clara and Arizona match-up that will take place just prior to the BYU game on Thursday. The BYU and Stanford game will start at 8 p.m. MST and can be heard on the Cougar IMG sports Network and ESPN 960 AM with Greg Wrubell or can be seen at GoStanford.com.
Announcer J.B. Long gave the Cougars some final advice going into tomorrow's game, 'the Cardinals have a deep core of reserves, they'll keep fresh legs on the field and they won't drop off,' Long said. 'I would say be braced for a full 90 minutes, or maybe more, of Stanford's best soccer.'