By Do-Hyoung Park on September 21, 2015

After two consecutive tightly contested overtime victories against unranked opponents, No. 6 Stanford women’s soccer (6-2) finally gave way to Santa Clara (6-3) in a 1-0 road loss Sunday night.

The result marked Stanford’s first loss to an unranked team since 2013 and the first loss to Santa Clara since 2006.

Although Stanford consistently kept pressure in Santa Clara’s half of the pitch, pressuring the Broncos with 9 corners to Santa Clara’s 3, the Cardinal couldn’t finish despite their numerous opportunities, which has been a concerning development through the first half of the team’s season.

After a 0-0 deadlock throughout most of the match, Santa Clara finally broke through in the 85th minute on a goal from Megan Crosson off of one of the Broncos’ three corner kicks of the evening. This gave the Broncos a late lead that stood for the rest of the match despite Stanford’s desperate attempts towards the end of the game.

The Cardinal had an opportunity to score the go-ahead goal with a penalty kick in the 78th minute. Fifth-year senior Haley Rosen lined up to take the shot, but Santa Clara goalie Andi Tostanoski saved it to keep the game tied at zero for the Broncos.

Freshman Michelle Xiao and sophomore Andi Sullivan, the Cardinal’s two leading scorers, were limited to three combined shots by a stout Santa Clara defense. Santa Clara outshot Stanford 13-11 in the match.

Junior goalkeeper Jane Campbell notched 5 saves but took a tough-luck loss without much help from Stanford’s offense, which only notched 1 shot on goal all game, in the second half.

Stanford next takes to the road for a stretch of three consecutive games at Utah, Arizona State and Arizona to kick off Pac-12 play.

Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.