KENNESAW, GEORGIA – Fitting.

 

That’s the word Stanford’s standout midfielder Teresa Noyola used to describe how she and fellow senior Camille Levin combined for the winning goal in Sunday’s NCAA Women’s College Cup final.

 

The effort lifted the Cardinal to a 1-0 defeat of a game Duke side, and lifted a world of weight off the team’s collective back after having come so close to winning in the previous three seasons at this event.

 

Noyola headed home from close range after a terrific effort by Levin to fight off challenges and cross a perfect ball in from the right. Noyola and Levin shared with us how great their moment truly was.

 

 

Emily Oliver shared the hero tag with a magnificent save of a blast from Duke’s Kaitlyn Kerr, and the Cardinal hung on to take the crown.

 

Duke was very dangerous in the closing 20 minutes, something forward Laura Weinberg admitted she wishes the Blue Devils would have been more of earlier in the match.

 

 

Duke coach Robbie Church allowed that the situation itself had a lot to do with his team not getting forward as much earlier in the game, but also pointed to switching tactics for the latter part of the 2nd half.

 

 

Stanford started the match brightly, winning a couple of corner kicks early. Nicole Lipp went fairly close on the other end for Duke, striking a free kick around the wall and narrowly wide. 

 

Chioma Ubogagu had what looked like a valid penalty claim about midway through the half when Duke defender Libby Jandl grabbled her arm just inside the area; but the referee waved play on. Stanford’s Rachel Quon found the back of the net just after that, but was correctly ruled offside on the play. 

 

Stanford’s Teresa Noyola earned her team’s best scoring chance of the half when she forced Duke goalkeeper Tara Campbell to tip a shot over the crossbar in the 32nd minute, Dominate is too strong of a word, but Stanford did have the lion’s share of the chances in the game up to that point.

 

In the final 10 minutes of the opening half however, Duke seemed to be gaining more possession and with it, confidence. The Blue Devils’ best chance came when Kaitlyn Kerr sent a hopeful ball into the penalty area that substitute Molly Lester did well to win from a defender. Lester then ripped a shot over from inside the penalty area, but the match went to halftime at 0-0, which had to spur at least a few memories from Stanford veterans about the past two seasons, where they made it to this match undefeated but failed to come home with a championship trophy.

 

But two of those veterans took care of that in short order upon the kickoff for the 2nd pass. Camille Levin fought hard to win a contested pass at the elbow of the penalty area, advanced the ball and had her initial attempt to cross, blocked. Levin recovered to reach the ball first and without appearing to look, hit an exquisite cross to hit the always-alert Teresa Noyola at the far post for a headed goal and a 1-0 lead that put the Cardinal on course for their first national title.

 

Stanford almost scored again minutes later as Rachel Quon and Noyola were involved in some nice combination play that left a ball right in front of the

Duke goal, but Natasha Anasi made an emergency clearance to avert the danger.

 

Far from defending a 1-0 lead, Stanford began reasserting itself in midfield and was now keeping the ball in the forward third rather consistently.

 

But after the TV timeout, Duke’s attack came alive. Mollie Pathman dribbled into the area and was dispossessed by a good tackle from Kendall Romine.

Pathman then got the ball wide and hit a good cross for Laura Weinberg, whose volley was deflected over the crossbar by Rachel Quon (no corner was given).

 

Moments later, Kaitlyn Kerr ran onto a clearance and hit a laser from the edge of the area that Emily Oliver did very well to push over. From the resulting corner, Weinberg showed some excellent skill to create a shot for herself, but it was blocked in the area.

 

A long ball with just over 10 minutes remaining nearly caused a disaster for Stanford. Oliver did very well to avoid handling outside the area. Kim DeCesare had the ball at her feet for a moment with the net open, but was too well covered by defenders to get a shot off.

 

Stanford effectively killed off the closing minutes despite the frantic efforts of the Blue Devils, and Paul Ratcliffe and the Cardinal finally had their national title.

 

 

GK: Tara Campbell

D: Erin Koballa, Libby Jandl, Natasha Anasi, Maddy Haller

M: Gilda Doria, Nicole Lipp, Kaitlyn Kerr, 

F:Mollie Pathman, Kelly Cobb, Laura Weinberg

Subs: Katie Trees, Molly Lester, Kim DeCesare, Chelsea Canepa, Alex Straton

GK: Emily Oliver

D: Camille Levin, Alina Garciamendez, Kendall Romine, Rachel Quon

M: Teresa Noyola, Mariah Bogueira, Kristy Zurmuhlen, 

F: Marjani Hing-Glover, Lindsay Taylor, Chioma Ubogagu

Subs: Sydney Payne, Taylor McCann, Annie Case, Madeleine Thompson, Alex Doll