Before the year comes to a close, I wanted to share some parting thoughts on the 2024 Stanford women’s soccer season. Stanford finished the season 16-5-2 overall with their season coming to a close in the College Cup semifinals against Wake Forest, which the Demon Deacons won 1-0. Stanford had a fantastic run to get back to the College Cup, defeating UC Santa Barbara, UConn, Arkansas, and Notre Dame along the way.

While Stanford would have liked to have won the national championship, they should feel very proud of the season they had. The way they were able to get back to the College Cup despite losing players like Jasmine Aikey and Kellie Pagador to injury shows a lot of grit and toughness. They could have easily thrown in the towel and said this wasn’t their year, but they instead kept on fighting and were rewarded for their efforts.

In addition to dealing with injuries, I think what made this season impressive for Stanford was the way they were able to flip on the switch after a disappointing end to the regular season. Their final two matches of the regular season were an 0-3 loss at Notre Dame and a 2-3 loss at home to rival Cal. Stanford was limping their way into the NCAA tournament and I honestly wasn’t sure if they’d make it out of the first round. Instead, they proved me wrong, looking like they hadn’t missed a beat from last year.

Similar to the men’s team, Sanford had some scoring issues. In 13 of their 23 matches, Stanford either didn’t score or only scored one goal. That’s 56.5% of their matches and in just four of those matches did they score 3+ goals. In their College Cup loss to Wake Forest, the defense was great, but when you aren’t able to put any balls in the back of the net, at some point you’re going to lose. Stanford had six corners to Wake Forest’s three, but Wake Forest ended up outshooting them 12-7. Stanford did a good job of creating scoring chances but finishing ended up being their biggest problem.

Looking ahead to next season, the biggest question for Stanford is how will they fare without senior goalkeeper Haley Craig? Craig was absolutely sensational in the net this season, giving up 0.78 goals per match. Alyssa Savig played in only one match this season as a sophomore and Kaiya Jota will be a sophomore next season after not appearing in a match this season. It’ll be interesting to see if Savig ends up being the starter from the jump or if head coach Paul Ratcliffe will opt for an in-season competition for the starting job.

If Stanford can get solid play in the net again next season, they should have another strong season in the ACC and be a threat to win a national title. It’ll be fun to see what kind of season they have and what kind of adjustments Ratcliffe makes to address the scoring issues.

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