Ducks Come Up Short At Stanford

STANFORD, Calif. — It took until the first week of October for the Oregon soccer team to experience defeat for the first time this fall, a 2-1 loss Sunday afternoon at No. 7 Stanford.

The Ducks (6-1-4, 1-1-1) withstood relentless pressure from the Cardinal through the first half but finally yielded in the second, allowing two goals before Ally Cook got the UO women on the scoreboard in the 75th minute. Stanford had a 29-4 advantage in shots, including 20-2 in the second half to even the score with Oregon after the Ducks recorded a win and a draw against the Cardinal in the spring.

"We knew it was gonna be a tough game, with Stanford being the type of team they are and the results we had against them last season," UO coach Graeme Abel said. "We said we're probably gonna see a different Stanford than what we saw last season, and we did."

How It Happened: Leah Freeman matched her season-high with eight saves in the game, including five in the first half. That helped her extend her scoreless streak to 449 minutes, 59 seconds — just shy of the UO record she set in the spring.

The Cardinal broke through with a goal off a free kick in the 50th minute, by Naomi Girma. Maya Doms made it 2-0 in the 66th minute; Doms finished the day with 11 shots, the most ever by a UO opponent.

Abel substituted liberally to keep the Ducks as fresh as possible on a particularly warm day at Stanford, and he tinkered tactically to create some chances late in the game. That paid off in the 75th minute, when Maya Hahn set Cook up to slice through the middle of the Cardinal defense and finish off her sixth goal of the season.

Cook was one of four Ducks to go all 90 minutes, along with Freeman and defenders Croix Soto and Anna Phillips. Starting defender Chai Cortez played just 11 minutes before leaving due to injury, and was replaced by Megan Rucker.

"She did a solid job," Abel said. "Obviously she's still learning, and any time you lose some kind of consistency on the back line it affects things. But I thought she did a good job with it."

What It Means: The Ducks came into Sunday on an unbeaten streak of 12 games, dating back to the spring. Now they'll look to regroup before returning home to play six of their final eight games in Oregon.

"We know from the past that if we go ahead and execute the game plan, we're effective, and I didn't think we executed the game plan," Abel said. "We'll look at ourselves as coaches to see if we got the game plan wrong, and if we find it was spot-on we'll look at, how do we help our student-athletes in terms of executing it."

Notable: Cook's goal was the 15th of her career. … Hahn's assist on the goal was her first as a Duck. … Freeman's program-record scoreless streak in the spring was 471:54.

Up Next: The Ducks host Arizona at Papé Field on Thursday (7 p.m., Pac-12 Network).