Oregon brought an intense hunger into Sunday’s tilt with No. 9 Stanford.
And feeding off a boisterous, school-record crowd of 816 at Papé Field, the Ducks nearly satisfied that hunger with a first-ever win, or tie, against the Cardinal.
But, alas, Stanford is Stanford, and in the end, that proved to be the difference as Oregon lost a hard-fought 3-1 match. The Ducks, who lost to California on Friday, 3-0, dropped to 6-4-1 and 0-2 in the Pacific-10 Conference, while Stanford improved to 9-1, 2-0.
“Stanford’s a really good team and I’m glad we battled like we did,” Chalise Baysa said.
The Ducks had plenty of support from the crowd as each solid play was greeted with an even more solid thumping of the white noise-makers handed out before the game.
“It was all excitement and adrenaline,” Oregon goalkeeper Sarah Peters said. “We were all so excited to play. It felt a lot louder, especially with those bangers.”
Those “bangers” were out in full force when Baysa scored the Ducks’ only goal of the game — and the first ever against Stanford in five meetings — at the 31:03 mark of the first half. Teammate Ann Westermark set Baysa up beautifully with a picture-perfect cross pass and Baysa took care of the rest.
“Ann busted her butt to get down and get it to me, I just tried to reward her and connect with it,” Baysa said.
Baysa’s goal came a mere 46 seconds after Stanford’s Christy LaPierre scored to give the Cardinal the early 2-0 edge. Marcia Wells put in a rebound goal in the 15th minute of the game for Stanford’s first goal.
The 2-1 halftime score could have been much worse had it not been for the terrific goalkeeping by Peters. Stanford outshot Oregon in the first half, 22-5.

“Sarah kept us in the game,” Oregon head coach Bill Steffen said. “She managed to cover for a lot of defensive lapses.”
Oregon, energized by the constant cheering from its home crowd, played a more efficient second half. During the final 45 minutes, the two teams each recorded eight shots on goal, with Oregon coming within inches of tying the game.
Both Lindsey Werdell and Julie McLellan just missed close range shots at one point, and a minute later, McLellan received a pass from Baysa and sent a shot off the left goal post.
“It’s always frustrating when you have the chances and don’t connect on them,” Baysa said.
The Ducks remained only one goal behind until Stanford’s Callie Withers jumped toward an oncoming corner kick and headed it past Peters and into the net to give the Cardinal the 3-1 lead with 4:21 to play.
Steffen said he had mixed emotions regarding the game because, while he wasn’t pleased with the end result, he was satisfied with how his team responded in the second half.
“If we can play two halves like we played the second half, we’ll be very successful from here on out,” Steffen said.
Up next for the Ducks is a trip to the desert to face Arizona on Friday and Arizona State on Sunday.