UMass falls 2-1 to Stanford, but strong turnout watches star’s
return
Stanford – The result didn’t go the way Gina Sanders and her University of Massachusetts teammates would have liked, but the former Live Oak High field hockey player and her strong crowd of supporters still enjoyed themselves on a warm Saturday afternoon at Stanford.
Despite the 2-1 loss to the Cardinal, the large contigent of UMass and Sanders supporters voiced plenty of enthusiasm – a lot more than the team typically finds on a road game.
“We go to Dartmouth and there’s maybe 10 people,” said Gina’s father Mike Sanders, who travels to all of her games on the East Coast and leads the crowds in “Go UMass” cheers. “Here, when we say ‘Go UMass,’ you can hear it way over there. You know (the players) can hear it. And that’s what it’s for. It’s for the parents to get pumped up, it’s something to do and I wish we could’ve done it more often because that’s what we do after they score.”
Gina Sanders said after the game said she wishes the Minutewomen could get another crack at Stanford down the road because she didn’t think the team played up to its capabilities.
“It’s a little disappointing because we didn’t perform as well as we should have,” she said. “We beat ourselves. We made the small mistakes. And the small mistakes ended up hurting us.”
Stanford got the scoring going early when Aska Sturdevan, a close friend of Sanders who played on a club team with her, punched in a goal 5:13 into the first half.
“I was a little torn,” Sanders said. “Aska’s a very talented player. I was so glad I finally got to play against her because we are very good friends.”
The Cardinal’s Jess Zutz added an unassisted goal with 11:24 left in the first half to stake Stanford to a 2-0 lead. UMass rebounded when Nicole Phelan scored an unassisted goal with 2:37 left in the game, but the Minutewomen couldn’t record the equalizer and fell 2-1.
UMass followed with a 3-0 loss to Cal on Sunday and the Minutewomen wrap up the road trip today when it takes on the University of Pacific at 3pm in Berkeley.
