STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford is moving on. Foster Langsdorf and Tomas Hilliard-Arce scored, Andrew Epstein made a huge save in the 63rd minute and the No. 5 Cardinal advanced in the NCAA Tournament with a 2-0 win over Pacific on Sunday night.
Stanford (12-3-4) will host 12th-seeded Virginia (11-3-5) for a third-round match next Sunday, Nov. 27 at 5 p.m. Tickets are now on sale by visiting gostanford.com/tickets and can be purchased over the phone beginning at 9 a.m. tomorrow by calling 800-STANFORD.
The Cardinal put Pacific (13-4-2) under immense pressure and the Tigers broke in the 37th minute when Amir Bashti had a takeway near midfield and fed ahead to Langsdorf. UOP's defender slipped, leaving Stanford's leading goal-scorer one-on-one with the Tigers' Curtis Goldsmith. Langsdorf beat Goldsmith to the far post for his 13th of the year and sixth game winner.
The goal was a welcome reward for an aggressive first half in which Stanford harassed Pacific with chance after chance. The Tigers didn't have a touch in their attacking half for the first 15 minutes.
"Our mentality was phenomenal today," Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said. "We were assertive and putting them under so much pressure and it paid off. Sometimes you're all over a team and you don't get the goal, they hang in there and sucker punch you. It happens all the time. They're an excellent team and they've advanced this far for a reason. Tonight the great thing was we kept going after them."
Langsdorf's goal moved him into a tie for 14th in Stanford single-season history in that category.
"He keeps doing what he does," Gunn said of the co-Pac-12 Player of the Year. "It's that constant pressure. It's one thing to do a couple exciting things in a game. It's another to do those exciting things and be constantly working and be constantly harassing and be constantly available. He's irrepressible as far as that goes."
Before Tomas Hilliard-Arce added some insurance in the 70th with a header off a corner from Jared Gilbey, Stanford goalkeeper Andrew Epstein came up with a big save in the 63rd to maintain his team's one-goal lead. Andres Ochoa lined up to take a free kick from just outside the top right corner of the box and tried to curl it to the far post, but Epstein lunged up and tipped it away with his right hand.
Epstein wasn't tested a ton, but earned his 20th career shutout in making a pair of second-half saves. He is third in school history in clean sheets behind Adam Zapala (46) and Willie Burkhardt (24) and hasn't allowed one through in his last 310 postseason minutes.
Stanford (2015) and Virginia (2014) have won the last two national championships. The Cavaliers' won the schools' first meeting in overtime, 2-1, on Oct. 15, 1989 at the Stanford Pacific Soccer Classic. The Cardinal returned the favor in 1998, knocking off Virginia in a NCAA quarterfinal in Charlottesville, 3-0.
"History isn't what's playing. It's the here and now," Gunn said.
