Stanford University’s women’s field hockey team will host Harvard University, ranked No. 6 nationally, in a match scheduled for Sunday, September 7 at 11 a.m. PT. The game will take place at the Varsity Field Hockey Turf as part of Stanford’s two-week homestand.
Stanford comes into the matchup after a decisive 6-0 victory over Ball State on Friday. Four different players contributed to the scoring, with Daisy Ford and Kendall Dowd combining for the team’s second consecutive shutout.
Kate Nemec opened the scoring for Stanford, followed by Nadine Brenninkmeyer and Liv Martin each scoring twice. Maroussia Walckiers added her first goal of the season shortly after Martin’s second goal, securing the win. This marks Stanford’s highest-scoring game since a 6-3 win against Richmond in September 2023.
Brenninkmeyer and Martin currently lead Stanford in both goals and points this season, each with two goals and four points. Assists were recorded by Mia Clark, Esther Pottebaum, Ella Ganocy, and Scout Butler—who assisted Summer Knight-Thompson’s first collegiate goal against Maryland—resulting in ten different Cardinal players having registered at least one point so far this season.
Goalkeeper Daisy Ford has played a key role defensively with a 2-1 record this year and has accumulated 16 saves. She holds a goals-against average of 1.09 and a save percentage of .842. Notably, Ford made a career-high 12 saves against Maryland, becoming the first Stanford goalkeeper to achieve at least that many in one game since Kelsey Bing did so in October 2019 against Louisville. Ford currently leads the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in saves this season.
Kendall Dowd also saw her first action of the season during Thursday’s game, making two saves in the fourth quarter to help maintain Stanford’s shutout streak. Dowd has a goals-against average of 1.79 and a save percentage of .731.
Freshman Summer Knight-Thompson was named to the NFHCA Collegiate Watchlist after becoming the first freshman to score in a season opener since Rose Winter accomplished that feat in 2019.
Stanford is on a two-game shutout streak and has not allowed an opponent to score from open play for nearly 151 minutes of game time; their last conceded goal from open play occurred late in the first half against Maryland via penalty corner.
Over their last two games, Stanford has outscored opponents by seven goals while allowing none and outshot them by more than three-to-one (51-14 overall shots; 22-6 shots on goal). The team also led significantly in penalty corners earned during these matches.
The Cardinal matched its highest single-game shot total since March 2021 with 26 attempts against Ball State. In that match, Brenninkmeyer’s second goal and Martin’s first came just 17 seconds apart—the fastest back-to-back goals for Stanford since at least the start of the 2018 season.
“Stanford concludes the weekend having dispatched Ball State on Friday afternoon, 6-0,” according to university officials. “The Cardinal – which bounced back from a lackluster first quarter – had four different goal scorers on the day while Daisy Ford and Kendall Dowd combined for Stanford’s second-consecutive shutout.”
“Following Kate Nemec’s season-opening tally to kickstart the Cardinal run, Nadine Brennikmeyer and Liv Martin both recorded consecutive braces to push the Cardinal to an insurmountable lead,” officials stated further. “Following up in the scoring department, Maroussia Walckiers nabbed her first goal of the season…to give Stanford the 6-0 win.”
“Defensively, Daisy Ford backstops the Cardinal having amassed a 2-1 record following a 45 minute performance on Thursday…Ford currently owns a 1.09 goals-against average and .842 save percentage to start the year,” according to university sources.
“Summer Knight-Thompson…became the first freshman to score in a season-opener since Rose Winter did so in…2019,” they added.
