Score: #18 Stanford 21, UAlbany 20
Location: Laird Q. Cagan Stadium in Stanford, Calif.
Records: UAlbany (3-4) | Stanford (3-3)
Short Story: Shonly Wallace paces UAlbany women's lacrosse with seven goals but the Great Danes fall at #18 Stanford 21-20.
Key Stats
Head Coach Katie Thomson: "We are proud of our start today and for dictating and attacking right away. It was a game of runs and it unfortunately didn't go in our favor, but we learned a lot that will help carry us forward."
How it Happened
- The University at Albany women's lacrosse team kicked off a three-game road swing on Saturday, starting with their first of two games in California against #18 Stanford. Last season, the Great Danes opened their season against the preseason #13 Cardinal and nearly pulled off a come-from-behind victory but fell by one in the final seconds, 15-14. UAlbany outscored Stanford 6-1 in the fourth, including scoring three in the final 54 seconds, but came up just short. And in 2019, when Stanford visited UAlbany for the first game between the teams in seven seasons, The 22nd-ranked Cardinal pulled out another narrow victory, 16-13.
- UAlbany got off to a quick start on Sunday. Shonly Wallace scored back-to-back within the first three minutes to put UAlbany up 2-0. The lead grew to 3-0 with 11:27 left in the first quarter when Katie Pascale found the back of the net, unassisted.
- Stanford responded with their own 3-0 run to tie the game with 8:21 on the clock. Pascale scored her second goal two minutes later to end Stanford's streak, and Grace McCauley, in a homecoming game for the Moraga, California resident, scored to put UAlbany back up by two.
- A brief interruption by Stanford to close the lead to one led to a four-goal run for UAlbany to end the first quarter and start the second. Allie Maloney scored twice during this run, and McCauley once, giving UAlbany four multiple-goal scorers just 17 minutes into the game.
- The team's leading goal-scorer on the season, Sarah Falk, closed out the four-goal run for UAlbany with her first and only score of the afternoon to put UAlbany up 9-4 with 11:56 left in the second. Stanford scored to briefly break up UAlbany's scoring, only to see the Great Danes score each of the next three to take a 12-5 lead with 9:01 left in the half.
- Wallace capped UAlbany's latest run to bring their lead to seven by scoring twice in 20 seconds of game time. Stanford broke the run with a single goal, before Bryar Hogg got on the board with 6:44 on the clock to keep UAlbany's lead at seven.
- Stanford scored the next two before Pascale closed the first half with one final goal with 1:34 to go to put UAlbany up 14-8 at the break. Despite leading by six, The Great Danes had only outshot the Cardinal 20-17 in the first 30 minutes, but had held Stanford without a single clear opportunity over that stretch.
- Stanford scored seven goals in the first eight-and-a-half minutes of the third quarter, including each of the first four. Ava Poupard's first of two goals broke up the middle of Stanford's run, which resulted in the Cardinal tying the game at 15. Wallace and McCauley scored back-to-back to put UAlbany back up two, before Stanford scored two-straight to tie the game at 17 just 24 seconds into the fourth quarter.
- Wallace scored her seventh and final goal of the afternoon, matched two minutes later by another game-tying goal from the Cardinal. With the score locked at 18, Pascale and Poupard scored back-to-back just 51 seconds apart to take a 20-18 lead with 9:53 remaining.
- Stanford closed the game on a 3-0 run to claim a 21-20 victory. The Cardinal first tied the game with 6:53 to go and scored the go-ahead goal with 5:49 left on the clock. The Stanford defense held UAlbany without a shot after taking their first lead of the game.
Next: UAlbany plays one more game in California, on March 15 at UC Davis.
