SEATTLE, Wash. – Junior defender Brandon Vincent took over the team lead in goals with his fourth of the season, but after cutting a two-score deficit in half, the No. 18 Stanford men's soccer team was unable to complete the comeback at No. 5 Washington on Sunday, falling to the Huskies 3-1.
The result drops Stanford's record to 7-2-0 overall and 1-1-0 in Pac-12 play. It also snapped the Cardinal's national-best seven-game win streak and was the first time the team had allowed three goals since last Oct. 12 at San Diego State.
Stanford found itself in a 2-0 hole in the after a pair of successful UW (9-1-0, 2-0-0) set pieces just two minutes apart in the latter stages of the first half. Off a corner in the 35th, the Huskies' James Moberg hit a diagonal pass on the ground to Justin Schmidt, whose 15-yard strike angled into the top corner of the goal. Two minutes later, Moberg sent in the cross off a free kick and Mason Robertson rose up to convert a header from inside the six-yard box.
Undeterred, the Cardinal kept pushing forward and a nice touch from Marshall Glover garnered a Husky hand ball inside the box led to a penalty kick just into the 45th minute. Vincent blasted the try by Spencer Richey leaving the Washington keeper no chance to keep Stanford off the board.
It was the economics major's fourth goal of the season after entering 2014 with just one score in his first 38 career matches and the second time this year he's scored in back-to-back games.
The Cardinal appeared primed to take an early lead, forcing Richey to make a handful of saves in the game's opening 15 minutes. Zach Batteer found a lane from outside the 18 and took a strike with his left that was stopped on the hop at 4:07. With 5:23 gone by Batteer won the ball on the end line and flipped it up and back to a charging Corey Baird. Baird settled the over-the-top pass and tried to flick in his second of the season, but Richey came out to make the stop.
Stanford searched intensely for the equalizer early in the second half, but instead Washington went ahead by two goals in the 61st. Andy Thoma carried his dribble into the box, but had it knocked away. The ball bounced to Darwin Jones who fired over the outstretched arms of Andrew Epstein.
The loss also snapped the Cardinal's streak of allowing one goal or less in its past seven games, something it hadn't done since 2010.
Stanford returns to The Farm to open its home conference schedule when it hosts San Diego State on Thursday at 6 p.m. in a game televised on the Pac-12 Networks.
The Cardinal is 6-0-2 in its last eight games at home dating back to last season and 15-7-3 on The Farm under Jeremy Gunn. The undefeated streak at Cagan is Stanford's longest since it went 6-0-2 over the last two home games of the 2008 season and the first six of the 2009 slate. Stanford opened the season with five wins in a row at home for the first time since 2009.