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ON THE AIR Friday
Saturday Football: Wake Forest at Stanford, 8:15 p.m., ESPN2; XTRA Sports (860 AM) Women’s volleyball: Stanford at San Francisco, 7 p.m.; live stats at gostanford. com
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The Stanford defense, here celebrating an interception during last weekend’s 35-0 Pac-10 win at UCLA, comes into this Saturday’s home game against Wake Forest ranked among the country’s top 10 in four defensive categories, including seventh in total defense and pass defense.
Stanford defense will be tested by Wake Forest Cardinal must stop a running game that averages 322 yards per game and ranks fourth nationally by Rick Eymer ven the offensive players were gushing over how well the Stanford defense played in Saturday’s 35-0 Pac-10 football victory over UCLA. They have plenty of experience working against them in practice, so they aren’t just guessing. The defense will be put to the test this week, when Wake Forest’s ex-
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plosive triple-option offense makes the scene at Stanford Stadium on Saturday in an 8:15 p.m. scheduled kickoff. “Our defense has really grown a lot and the whole nation saw that Saturday,” Cardinal senior wide receiver Ryan Whalen said. The Stanford defense ranks among the country’s top 10 in four defensive categories, including seventh in
total defense and pass defense and eighth in efficiency defense. Wake Forest, though, ranks fourth in rushing offense (322.0), third in scoring offense (53.50) and 11th in overall offense (504.4). “You look at that offense and they are expert at it,” Harbaugh said. “That coaching staff has been together for 10 years and the players are good at executing it. It’s re-
ally impressive how good they are at it.” The Demon Deacons have carved their 2-0 record from the carcasses of Presbyterian College (currently on a 16-game losing streak) and Duke (losers of five of its past six games), who were a combined 5-18 last season. (continued on page 40)
PREP FOOTBALL
STANFORD ROUNDUP
Palo Alto has chance to test the best
The race is on to win school’s 100th NCAA title
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n the grand scheme of things, the showdown between the Palo Alto and Mitty football teams on Friday likely means less than the matchup appears to be. While both are ranked among the top five teams in the Central Coast Section and both favored to contend for league titles — and play in the postseason — the outcome probably won’t affect any of the aforementioned when they meet at Palo Alto High at 7:30 p.m. “You play good teams so when you get into league play we’re not shocked by the level of competence we’re facing,” said Palo Alto head coach Earl Hansen. “We have some (continued on page 39)
by Rick Eymer ight-five years after the Stanford men’s track and field team won the school’s first NCAA title, the Cardinal looks forward to No. 100, which could come as soon as Nov. 21 in Maryland. Stanford, which has won at least one NCAA title in each of the past 34 years — a standing national record — seeks to become the second American university to reach the century mark. UCLA won its 100th NCAA title at the expense of Stanford in May of 2007 when the Bruins’ women’s water polo team edged the Cardinal, 5-4, in the 2007 national championship match in Los Alamitos. At Stanford, 17 different sports have contributed 99 NCAA titles and 82 NCAA runnerup trophies over the years. Heading into this weekend, Stanford currently has two teams — women’s volleyball and men’s cross country — ranked first in the nation, while women’s soccer is ranked second, men’s water polo ranks fourth, women’s field hockey ranks 16th and football is No. 19. The men’s golf team, which competes at the Fighting Illini Invitational this weekend, was ranked third in the final poll last April. The football team plays at home Saturday at 8:15 p.m., the
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by Keith Peters
Marc Abrams/stanfordphoto.com
Women’s volleyball: Stanford at St. Mary’s 7 p.m.; live stats at gostanford. com
Rob Ericson/stanfordphoto.com
PRO SOCCER . . . The FC Gold Pride enjoyed more success than any other team in Women’s Professional Soccer this season, winning the regular-season title with a 16-3-5 record. Thus, it was no surprise when three Gold Pride players won four of the league’s seven postseason awards on Thursday. FC Gold Pride forward Marta as named the Michelle Akers Player of the Year as the WPS Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row. She also won the PUMA Golden Boot award as the league’s top scorer. Stanford grad Ali Riley was named the league’s Rookie of the Year. In her first year as a professional, Riley has been an integral cog in the Pride’s success in 2010. She was a regular in the Pride’s back line, which, with the help of Riley, proved to be the best in the league. Former Stanford keeper Nicole Barnhart was selected as the league’s top goalkeeper for her stellar performance throughout the season. In her second year with the Pride, the steady play of the U.S. National Team veteran proved to be invaluable as she held opponents to the lowest goals against average in the league (0.88) and posting 8 shutouts, also a WPSbest. In other soccer news, it was a good news-bad news situation for former Stanford All-American Kelley O’Hara this week. The good news was that the FC Gold Pride rookie forward was named Player of the Week in Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS). The bad news, however, was that O’Hara on Monday discovered she suffered a partial tear of her right quadriceps during last Saturday’s 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Independence to close the regular season. The injury likely will keep O’Hara out of the Pride lineup for the WPS Championship game on Sept. 26 at Pioneer Stadium on the campus of Cal State East Bay in Hayward. The recovery time for the injury is three to four weeks. O’Hara remains optimistic that she will attend preliminary training session(s) with the U.S. Women’s National Team at the end of the month.
Stanford volleyball’s Alix Klineman is the National Player of the Week.
(continued on page 40)
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