Through roughly one quarter of the match, ASU soccer and then-No. 2 Stanford were locked in a scoreless draw in Palo Alto on Oct. 6, 2013.
Sun Devil sophomore forward Sara Tosti received the ball from her teammate, sophomore midfielder Tommi Goodman, and gained her footing in the middle of the field from several feet outside the box.
Tosti struck the ball with her right foot, and the Stanford goalkeeper stood motionless as it sailed upward and curved perfectly into the upper portion of the net, putting ASU on top 1-0.
The Sun Devils erupted with excitement, and ended up pulling off the shocking 1-0 upset.
Stanford came into the match with a 73-game unbeaten streak on their home turf, and a 44-game win streak in Pac-12 play. Tosti's magnificent finish in the 24th minute stopped both of those streaks dead in their tracks.
ASU head coach Kevin Boyd said he remembers that play vividly.
"(Tosti) is a two-footed shooter that has a ball that dips," Boyd said. "So when she hits the ball hard it drops, which is a very rare skill to have."
Tosti's role was and still is significant in that she can be a key contributor on both ends of the field.
In her first three years at ASU, Tosti switched positions from defender, to forward, to defender. This season, she's listed as a defender for the second season in a row, and Boyd said he's tried to settle Tosti into that defined role for her final year as a Sun Devil.
"She's moved all over the place in her four-year career," Boyd said. "Now we're utilizing her as both a wide and central (defender) because she's just tactically smart, she's competitive and she's got the physical traits."
Now in her senior year and almost two full years removed from a defining play in program history, Tosti looks back fondly on a moment that she said acted as a sort of homecoming.
"It was pretty sweet for me because I'm from up there (near Palo Alto), so I had a bunch of family that came and watched that game," Tosti said.
Tosti's family weren't the only ones ecstatic on the day that the versatile footballer toppled a Pac-12 titan. The two players who helped set up that goal, Goodman and senior forward Cali Farquharson, remember the magnitude of that historic strike from distance.
"I just remember watching it float into the back of the net," now-senior Goodman said. "It was so exciting because we knew coming into the game that we had a shot to beat (Stanford)."
Farquharson said she started celebrating before the ball even hit the back of the net.
"From our angle you just knew it was going in," Farquharson said, raising her arms and acting out her celebration. "So when it did I was like 'Yeah!' and ran over to hug (Tosti)."
The Sun Devils (4-4) will be hoping for another reason to celebrate this weekend as they host No. 5 Cardinal in Tempe. ASU's match with Stanford comes on the heels of a four-game losing skid.
Tosti said not much has changed about the quality of Stanford as an opponent since that day, and her team will have to be at its best to pull another upset.
"(Stanford) is always a contender," Tosti said. "As long as we play our game, we can hang with anybody. We've just gotta get the ball in the back of the net."
If all else fails, coach Boyd can always move Tosti back to forward and see if she can find that magic once again.
Reach the reporter at rclarke6@asu.edu or follow @RClarkeASU on Twitter.
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