ASU women's soccer falls hard to Stanford

The ASU women's soccer team was defeated by fifth-ranked Stanford 5-0 on Sunday. The Sun Devils' record dropped to 7-5-4 (1-3-1 Pac-10) while Stanford improved to 16-0-1 (6-0-0 Pac-10).

Offensively, the Sun Devils were only able to generate five shots for the day while the Cardinal had 33. On the defensive end, the Sun Devils were without junior goalkeeper Briana Silvestri on Sunday. Coming through with gritty performances in her place were junior Katie Cochran (seven saves, two goals allowed) and freshman Leslie Castellano (five saves, three goals allowed), who combined for 12 saves on the afternoon.

"Stanford is the best team we've seen in two years" said ASU head coach Kevin Boyd. "They are just so explosive and fast all over the field and they do that with technique and ability to keep the ball. Plus it was senior day and so they had a lot going for them.

"We decided we'd try to play them head to head knowing they were that good because I wanted our players to get a feel for what the top looks like and what we have to do to get there."

Stanford opened the scoring at the 19-minute mark when Kelly O'Hara got free on a breakaway and finished by getting her shot into the far post for a 1-0 lead.

The Cardinal increased its lead to 2-0 when Lindsay Taylor took a ball headed back to her by teammate Teresa Noyola and sent a shot passed Cochran.

The Cardinal would score three more times in the second half to make the final count 5-0.

Two Sun Devils - Castellano and sophomore Heather Woolschlager - saw the first action of their respective collegiate careers in Sunday's match at Stanford. Five ASU players - Carly Kallas, Erica Long, Kate Sangster, Jill Shoquist, Karin Volpe - combined to take ASU's five shots.

ASU returns to action on Friday when it hosts Oregon at 7 p.m.