Cardinal romp, Broncos slip by Bears in openers
After one round, the the number of Bay Area teams in the NCAA women’s soccer tournament was halved.
Stanford and Santa Clara knocked off lowerseeded San Jose State and Cal, respectively, to reach the second round and will head east this week.
The Cardinal will have to go through BYU before a possible third-round game against College Cup favorite North Carolina. Santa Clara, which is in the bottom half of the same bracket as Stanford, will play top-seeded Notre Dame.
Stanford will face the Cougars in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Thursday. For Santa Clara, its game against the Irish will be Friday in South Bend, Ind.
The Cardinal and Broncos opened with very different games. Stanford smothered SJSU 6-0, and Santa Clara avoided penalty kicks with a last-minute goal in double overtime to beat Cal 1-0. Stanford: The Cardinal (17-2-2) were shorthanded against SJSU, but Jasmine Aikey more than picked up the slack.
The freshman scored four goals in Friday’s home blowout of San Jose State (8-7-7). It could have been five, but Aikey saw a goal wiped off the board with an offside call; about 30 seconds later, she netted her fourth anyway.
“There was extra motivation to get that fourth one back,” she said. “It was super exciting to help the team like that.”
Her two second-half goals came in a three-minute span, during which time she also scored the one that didn’t count.
Aikey has been playing up front, taking a more attacking role since fellow freshman Allie Montoya tore her ACL against No. 1 UCLA in mid-October. The Cardinal have also been without freshman defender Elise Evans, whom head coach Paul Ratcliffe said sat out for precautionary reasons and was available off the bench on Friday.
Aikey, who had five goals in the regular season, was a flawless fit to pick up the offense.
“We’ve been watching in practice, she has really started to come into her own,” Ratcliffe said. “There is a level of sophistication and ability she has, her confidence has improved, and that was on full display.”
San Jose State, led by freshman goalie Bente Pernot, hadn’t allowed more than three goals in a game all season. Stanford doubled that and Aikey netted more than any SJSU opponent herself.
Stanford heads to North Carolina where second-seeded UNC hosts the second and third rounds. Getting past BYU and North Carolina could send the Cardinal to Notre Dame if the top seed gets through its half of the bracket.
BYU, a sixth seed, beat Utah Valley 3-0 in the first round. The Cougars (102-6) finished behind Santa Clara in the WCC.
Santa Clara: It was fitting that the Broncos’ big moment came at the very end Saturday. That’s exactly what head coach Jerry Smith expected of their season.
Following a 3-5-1 start, the Broncos (11-6-3) surged in WCC play to earn a No. 8 seed in the postseason. Against at-large Cal (105-6), which had beaten the Broncos in the regular season, Santa Clara finally scored.
A middle-of-the-field struggle and strong goalkeeping kept the match 0-0 into — and nearly through — double overtime. Just 27 seconds away from the game going to penalty kicks, Izzy D’Aquila scored on a header, her 19th goal of the season.
“I honestly didn’t even know where I was in the box,” the senior said. “I just knew I had to get up against the goal and luckily we finally got it past (Cal goalie Angelina Anderson). Putting it in finally was a great feeling.”
Before the season, Smith projected a rough start for a Broncos team that lost several players to graduation and freshman Sally Menti, who was expected to be their key playmaker, to a torn ACL.
Santa Clara won the NCAA title in 2020 and lost in the semifinals last year.
“We’re very different now,” Smith said. “We were struggling for an identity. I think it toughened us up. (That identity) became taking care of the ball, not turning the ball over.”
Smith cited a 7-0 loss to TCU early in the season as a turning point. He said then that he didn’t care about the score as much as limiting turnovers, and that message got through.
Santa Clara played Cal a couple of games later, a 1-0 loss. Against the same Bears team on Saturday, the Broncos had come a long way.
“We may not win our next game, and we might not win any more in the NCAA playoffs, but no one wants to play us,” Smith said. “Nobody wants to play us in November. Maybe they’ll beat us, but nobody wants to play Santa Clara.”
The Broncos will deal with Notre Dame (15-2-3), which is No. 4 in the country and beat Omaha 5-0 in the first round.