Wake Forest Falls to No. 3 Stanford at Home

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The Wake Forest men's soccer team (5-3-3, 0-3-1 ACC) fell to No. 3 Stanford (10-1-1, 4-1-0 ACC) at Spry Stadium Saturday night.

Wake Forest battled hard in the early stages of the match and would enter the half at a draw with the third-ranked Cardinal.

Despite the Demon Deacons' efforts out of the half, Stanford scored the opening goal of the night to take the lead in the 63rd minute before doubling the scoreline in the 86th minute.

In goal, redshirt sophomore Jonah Mednard recorded five saves to keep the Deacs in the match. The Congers, N.Y., native has now surpassed 30 saves on the season, as his 32 saves ranks fourth in the ACC.

How it Happened

The Cardinal had the first shot of the evening in the fourth minute as Mednard made a comfortable diving stop.
Wake Forest won a corner in the fifth minute, which resulted in shots from Sarajian and Perez that were both blocked and eventually went behind for another corner.
Perez came close to the opener with a beautiful effort from distance at the 15-minute mark, but the Stanford keeper just got a hand to it and pushed it behind for yet another corner.
Mednard was called into action again in the 23rd minute for his second save of the night.
Lorentz made a heroic goalline clearance in the 27th minute and kept the match scoreless.
Before the 30-minute mark, the Wake Forest shot-stopper already recorded four saves, just two shy of his career high.
Belal attempted a bicycle kick in the 32nd, but his great effort went over the bar.
White won Wake Forest its fifth corner of the contest with eight minutes remaining in the first half.
With less than six minutes remaining in the half, Belal launched an effort high and kept pressure on the Stanford defense before the break.
Wake Forest entered the half level at 0-0.
Stanford came out of the break with the first four shots of the second half before it found the breakthrough in the 63rd minute to take the 1-0 lead.
Debah logged the first second-half attempt for the Deacs in the 66th minute with a low-driven shot from distance that went just wide right.
Sullivan came up with a huge sliding block in the box to keep Wake Forest within one in the 65th minute.
The Demon Deacons came close to an equalizer multiple times over the next 15 minutes with four blocked shots and three corner kicks as Wake Forest continued to put pressure on the Stanford backline.
- Sarajian had the best chance of the night for the Deacs on a counterattack in the 77th minute.
The Cardinal added a second in the 86th minute and closed out the 2-0 win for the visitors.

Demon Deacon Details of Note

Krueger made his 30th career appearance.
Belal made his 30th career appearance.
Umar made his 50th career start.
Sarajian made his 25th career start.
Lorentz made his 20th career appearance.

From Coach Muuss
"That was a tough loss. I want to thank the community and the students for coming out and supporting the Deacs tonight. It was a great crowd. We had a couple of really close chances when it was 1-0. I'm proud of the effort that these guys played with. You're looking at two completely contrasting styles of football tonight and the guys were up for the challenge. We were just a bit unlucky in front of goal. Hats off to Stanford, they do what they do and they do it well. There's no moral victories, but we learned a lot about ourselves tonight. Some players had really good performances and I think that's something we can grow on and we will. Now all eyes turn forward to a long trip to California."

Up Next
After Saturday night's match, Wake Forest will hit the road for just the third time this season as it travels across the country for a conference match against another ACC newcomer, Cal.

The match against the Golden Bears is slated for 6 p.m. eastern and will be shown live on ACCNX. It will mark the first ACC clash between the two programs and the second meeting in three years as the two teams battled to a 1-1 draw in non-conference action in 2023 at Spry.

Next Event

Team Stats

Daniel Krueger

Harvey Sarajian

Jose Perez

Ryan Belal

Players Mentioned

Jonah Mednard

Wake Forest Athletics