UVA Soccer | Top-ranked women come up short in 2-1 loss at #3 Stanford

The top-ranked Virginia women will return from the Left Coast with a draw and now a defeat, the latter a 2-1 setback at #3 Stanford on Sunday.

The Cardinal (11-0-1, 5-0-1 ACC) led 2-0 at the half, and withstood a rally from the ‘Hoos (10-1-2, 4-1-1 ACC), who had, on Thursday, drew with Cal on the first leg of their West Coast road trip.

“It’s hard to go down two goals and come back against a team like Stanford, but we certainly made it a game in the second half,” UVA coach Steve Swanson said.

Stanford got on the board in the 27th minute with a bicycle-kick goal from Jasmine Aikey following a corner. The second Cardinal goal came 10 minutes later as Lizzie Boamah served one to the back post from the left side of the box. Charlotte Kohler went up at the corner of the six and headed it back across goal for the score.

Virginia got on the board in the 72nd minute off the foot of Jill Flammia. A service to the back post was headed out as Stanford attempted to clear the ball. It dropped to Flammia at the top of the penalty arc, and she stepped into the shot and fired it across to the upper left corner for the score.

“I thought we competed hard today. We just had a few uncharacteristic breakdowns on the defensive side that cost us,” Swanson said afterward. “A lot of takeaways from this trip which we can use moving forward. I’m confident our team will respond in the right way.”