Feb. 24, 2004

It was a cold and rainy night when the St. Mary's Gaels went head to head with the Stanford Cardinal. During the first half, the Cardinal's play matched the abysmal weather and we were all left wondering what had happened that the grit, determination, and tenacity of seasons' past. The two teams went goal for goal for most of the first half. We wondered how long it would take our Cardinal to stop to this endless scoring seesaw. And, the attack responded with strong "Fear not!" and quickly hammered away 3 goals to put our halftime lead at 9-6 (?).

We entered the second half with a renewed sense of purpose and were committed to resoundingly trounce the Gaels. While that may not have exactly happened, the second half was witness to some superb defensive stops and offensive plays. Defensively, checks-on-impact abounded and the Gaels were hard pressed to move the ball up the field. Cheers to Liz Piselli for some excellent transition defense. Because defense never gets shout outs, I'm going to toot my own horn here and say that I had a nice turnover or two myself.. And while I'm at it Tiffany, Nyerr, Tia, Jessica, and Nina also had many impeccable defensive plays. Not to mention that Christina came in during the second half and made it tough for the Gaels to find the back of the net. Offensively, the Gaels couldn't stop Sarah and Abbi who both finished the game with hat tricks. In the final few minutes, Cassie and Julia's goals were nothing short of stunning and called to memory the Queen classic, "We will rock you."

All in all, the Cardinal came up big when it mattered. This game was a tremendous challenge to our emotional and mental toughness and prepared us well for the rest of the season. We had some great ball movement up the field and were able to pull it out in the end.

Thanks to our fans from out of town whose unflagging support and robust enthusiasm is truly remarkable. Way to Card on a huge win!

- Katie Grube