Boamah Returns From World Cup Duty and Earns First Career ACC Honor

Stanford defender Lizzie Boamah didn't waste any time getting back up to speed. The junior, who rejoined the Cardinal on Sunday after representing the U.S. at the U-20 World Cup in Poland, was named ACC Defensive Player of the Week this week after anchoring the Cardinal's 2-0 upset shutout of No. 3 Wake Forest — her first career weekly conference honor.

The numbers behind the award are stark. Boamah played all 90 minutes at center back in a Stanford defense that limited Wake Forest, then unbeaten at 9-0-0, to just four total shots and a single shot on goal all match. That's a dramatic swing for a Cardinal defense that had allowed 19 shots in a home loss to Louisville just three days earlier.

The award also extends what's become a running theme for this Stanford team: spreading the individual recognition around.

Boamah is the fifth different Cardinal player to earn a weekly ACC honor this season, joining freshman London Young (Freshman of the Week, August 18), junior Charlotte Kohler (co-Offensive Player of the Week, August 25), and the week of September 1 winners, Sadie Leal-Schuman (Freshman of the Week) and Sammy Smith (Defensive Player of the Week).

Junior Jaden Thomas added a national honor on top of that, being named IWSOC National Player of the Week on September 10.

For a team that went into the Wake Forest match on the back of consecutive losses and missing five players to international duty, five different conference honors through a month of the season are a reminder of how deep this Stanford roster runs — and Boamah's performance suggests the group is only becoming more complete as its World Cup contingent returns to the field.

The win pushed Stanford to 7-2-1 overall and 1-2-0 in ACC play, snapping a two-match losing streak that had included the program's first home loss in 21 matches.

With Boamah, goalkeeper Caroline Birkel and the rest of the returning World Cup group now fully back in the fold, the Cardinal defense that shut down Wake Forest will get another chance to build on that form Friday, when Stanford travels to face SMU at 4 p.m.

It's the kind of measuring-stick stretch that could define how the rest of Stanford's ACC slate shapes up as we get deeper into the season, and Boamah's honor is an early sign the pieces are falling into place at the right time.