No. 6 Stanford Falters Again in Loss to Louisville

On the bright side, Stanford women's soccer is expecting to get five players back after a month-long absence before their match against No. 3 Wake Forest, with goalkeeper Caroline Birkel, defender Lizzie Boamah and midfielder Y-Lan Nguyen returning from the U.S., while goalkeeper Kaiya Jota and forward Eleanor Klinger will return after representing England.

Without those key players, the Cardinal have faced some adversity over the past two matches, losing 5-0 to No. 2 Duke on the road, then being on the wrong end of another clean sheet at home, dropping Thursday's match to the Cardinals 1-0. The first loss dropped Stanford from its No. 1 ranking. This second loss may push them down further.