Stanford beats UCLA to win women’s soccer title
Until Sunday, the UCLA women’s soccer team had gone 14 months and 33 games without losing a match in which it scored multiple goals. And UCLA hadn’t allowed three goals in a regulation-length game in more than two years.
All of which means the Bruins picked a bad time to revisit history because it did both of those things in a 3-2 loss to Stanford in the NCAA title game in Orlando, Fla.
A left-footed bender by midfielder Jaye Boissiere that curled just inside the far post in the 67th minute proved to be the game-winner for Stanford. It wiped out a UCLA rally that saw the Bruins erase a two-goal deficit on a penalty-kick score from Jessie Fleming and a header by Delanie Sheehan off a corner kick four minutes apart early in the second half.
Fleming’s goal was her sixth of the season, Sheehan’s was her fifth.
The top-ranked Cardinal (24-1-0) peppered UCLA with 15 shots, 10 on goal. And though Bruin keeper Teagan Micah matched a season-high by saving six of them, she couldn’t stop Boissiere’s 25-yard striker. Kyra Carusa and Andi Sullivan scored the other Stanford goals.
Carusa’s goal, in the 15th minute, came off an unlucky break for the Bruins when a cross from Catarina Macario deflected off the back of a UCLA defender to Carusa, who volleyed it into the net. Sullivan scored 11 minutes later.
Macario assisted on all three Stanford scores to give her 17 on the season. The freshman from Brazil also scored 17 times.
The win ran Stanford’s winning streak to 22 matches while making the Cardinal just the second Pac-12 team to win two NCAA women’s soccer titles after USC, which won last year. Stanford won its first championship in 2011.
UCLA, which played four sophomores and four freshmen Sunday, finishes the season 19-3-3. The Bruins were ranked No. 1 in the country for six weeks earlier this season.
UPDATES:
1:10 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with staff reporting.
This article was first published at 12:05 p.m.
