Orlando hosts soccer title game

The acronym GOAT is often applied to athletes such as Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and Barry Bonds. It stands for: Greatest Of All Time.

There is a possibility the top-ranked Stanford women’s soccer team, which led the NCAA with a program-record 86 goals heading into Friday night’s 2-0 national semifinal victory over South Carolina, will supplant its predecessors on The Farm for the right to call itself GOAT.

“I always leave it on the players on the field to make that decision for me,” Stanford coach Paul Ratcliffe, who is in his 15th season at the helm and whose team will face UCLA today at noon at Orlando City Stadium for the national title, which would be the Cardinal’s second.

UCLA defeated Duke 4-3 on penalty kicks in Friday’s second semifinal.

“Every year I’ve always said, ‘Oh, this could be the year, this could be the year,’ and it’s definitely heartbreaking to not get to the Final Four, to not get a national championship,” said midfielder Andi Sullivan, a freshman back in 2014, the last time Stanford advanced to the College Cup. “So hopefully this is the year, because we’re about due in my mind and I think obviously we’ve shown that we have the ability to do it. It’s just: Are we going to show up in the day?”

Looking back, a threeyear span from 2009 to 2011 marks the apex of Stanford women’s soccer. Each season produced a senior as the MAC Hermann Trophy winner, the sport’s equivalent to the Heisman Trophy — Kelley O’Hara (’09), Christen Press (’10) and Teresa Noyola (’11). O’Hara and Press, members of the U.S. team that brought home the Women’s World Cup in 2015, left Stanford after 1-0 losses in the NCAA final. The breakthrough came in 2011 after Noyola notched the game-winning header in a 1-0 triumph over Duke.

“We’re so determined,” said freshman attacker Catarina Macario, who earlier in the week was named ESPNW Player of the Year. “Literally every practice, every time we do anything, we know what our ultimate goal is. And, obviously, Stanford hasn’t won a national championship since 2011, so we want to leave our legacy."

Macario, who ranks fourth in the nation with 17 goals, is one of three MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalists on the roster, along with Sullivan and sophomore Tierna Davidson, both of whom were called up during the season to join O’Hara and Press for separate stints with the U.S. women’s national team. One of several impact players on the roster playing beyond her years, Macario paced NCAA Division I in points (47) and tied for assists (13) going into the weekend.

“What she’s done as a freshman is truly remarkable,” Ratcliffe said. “I don’t know if people are going to realize how amazing it is.”

It’s harder to gauge the contributions from Sullivan and Davidson in terms of individual statistics. Along with redshirt sophomore Jaye Boissiere in the midfield and junior Alana Cook on the backline, the quartet orchestrates action on the pitch.