STANFORD, Calif. – The No. 24 Stanford men's soccer team surrendered an early goal, but battled back in the later stages of the first half to equalize, eventually take the lead and come away from Cagan Stadium 2-1 winners over SIU Edwardsville on Friday night.
The victory, the Cardinal's fourth in a row, moves its record to 4-1-0 on the season and a perfect 3-0 in matches on The Farm.
Trailing by the one goal in the 31st minute, Jordan Morris used an aggressive run to beat his defender to the back post. The sophomore dropped a timely tap off to the waiting Marshall Glover, who deposited his first career goal from the center of the box squarely to the middle of the rear of the net.
A little over 10 minutes later, junior Brandon Vincent, a stalwart on Stanford's back line, kept up his strong offensive game of late. Working his way free on one of Stanford's seven corner kicks, the economics major's header off an assist from freshman Drew Skundrich slipped between SIUE's Kent Kobernus and the far post (41:06).
It was Skundrich's first career point and Vincent's third career goal, following up his bending golazo last Tuesday night against UCSB.
"We were okay off [of set pieces]," Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said. "We're happy with the result. We managed to fight our way back into the game, but there are a lot of areas for improvement. Edwardsville did a good job of trying to pressure us and make it difficult to get settled into a run of play where we were passing and moving as well as we can."
The Cougars (0-5-2) entered the game with a string of rough luck in the early going. SIUE began the year with four consecutive overtime games and has played five overtime games this season. Three of the team's four losses prior to Friday came in extra time and two in the 110th minute or later.
But an early tally from Matt Polster (9:41) seemed to give SIUE some life.
"Edwardsville came into the game very sharp," Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said. "There was a run from deep that never got stopped. You know straightaway you're in a game when you give up a soft goal like that. Now you've got a hole to dig yourself out of and you have to work a lot harder."
And the Cardinal were able to do just that in defending its home pitch. In the second half a couple of impressive combinations nearly broke the match open.
In the 59th minute, Vincent started a string with a throw in from the near side. Corralled by mechanical engineering major Bobby Edwards, the redshirt senior drew up a pass to Morris, who sped through the defense and led Jimmy Callinan right outside the box. The St. Ignatius product and economics major's right-footed rocket was just wide from 15 yards out.
In the 74th minute, freshman Corey Baird, who last week assisted on his first career goal almost set up another. Some fancy footwork in front of SIUE's bench gave Baird a split second to whip in a service onto the diving head of Zach Batteer. The earth system major's attempt was saved on a dive from Kobernus and kept SIUE within striking distance.
"Edwardsville is a very good team," Gunn added. "They've gone to overtime five times and have been very unfortunate to have the record they currently do. They're losing games by one goal and they've played toe-to-toe with everyone. I knew it was going to be a very tough game. Credit to Edwardsville, I thought they played some great stuff tonight."
Stanford, which is now 4-0-2 in its last six home matches dating back to last season, will attempt to keep the streak alive when it hosts No. 11 Delaware (6-1-0) on Sunday at 1 p.m. in a game televised on the Pac-12 Networks.