STANFORD, Calif. –Stanford had some celebrating to do on Thursday night. The No. 6 Cardinal's 1-0 victory on The Farm over rival and No. 23 Cal to close out its regular season was sandwiched between a pregame recognition honoring the program's decorated senior class and a postgame ceremony celebrating its second consecutive Pac-12 championship.
In between, redshirt freshman Sam Werner's seventh-minute slip to the far post was all Stanford needed to set a school record for Pac-12 wins. The Cardinal upped its record against Cal to 7-1-2 in its last 10 against the Golden Bears and 7-1-2 in conference matches in 2015.
Stanford (14-2-2, 7-1-2), which locked up the league's automatic bid by virtue of its conference title, will wait until Monday to hear its postseason schedule. The NCAA bracket will be announced via a live stream on NCAA.com at 10 a.m. PT.
TURNING POINT » In the seventh minute, Eric Verso centered the ball for Corey Baird, who turned up field and slid it across to Sam Werner. Werner took a touch and slipped it far post past Cal (9-6-2, 4-4-2) keeper Jonathan Klinsmann. The Cardinal midfielder, who started his seventh career game on Thursday, has scored in each of Stanford's last two outings.
PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIP » Stanford, which clinched at least a share of the league title by virtue of a 2-0 victory at Oregon State on October 31, claimed the 2015 trophy outright following Washington's 1-1 draw at San Diego State last Friday night. The Cardinal has won each of the last two Pac-12 championships and three total.
JEREMY GUNN » This is such an amazing conference with such good coaches and unbelievable players. The standard of the game is incredible. For the players to do what they've done this year makes you obviously very, very proud as a coach. Hopefully we can enjoy the moment, regroup and then focus on the next task at hand. We want to keep playing as many soccer games as we can.
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A photo posted by Stanford Men's Soccer (@stanfordmenssoccer) on Nov 12, 2015 at 8:10pm PST
RECORDS » Stanford moved to 14-2-2 overall and finished 7-1-2 in conference play with the win. The Cardinal had won six Pac-12 matches three times previously (2014, 2001, 2000), but never seven. Stanford's 14 wins are also tied for sixth in program history and are the most since 2002 (17).
CONFINES OF CAGAN » Stanford is 8-0-2 at home this season and is 17-1-6 in its last 24 matches at Cagan Stadium.
VERSO WITH THE ASSIST » Redshirt senior Eric Verso tallied his 11th assist of the season on Thursday night. Only three players since 1980 have had more for Stanford in a single season. Ted Rafalovich set up 17 goals in 1981 and 16 in 1980, Roger Levesque had 13 in 2002 and Jorge Titnger 12 in 1982.
STAYING AHEAD » Stanford led wire-to-wire yet again against Cal. The Cardinal has trailed in just 5.2 percent of its total minutes played in 2015. Stanford has been on the field for 1,687:39 and been behind for 87:36.
IT'S IN THE DEFENSE » Thursday also marked Stanford's ninth shutout of the season, its most since 2009 (9), and lowered Andrew Epstein's goals against average to 0.65. His seven solo shutouts in 2015 are tied for ninth in program single-season history with Craig Ueland (1977) and Willie Burkhardt (1983).
SENIORS » Slater Meehan, Ty Thompson, Eric Verso and Brandon Vincent were honored in a pregame ceremony. They have led the Cardinal to 46 wins, back-to-back Pac-12 championships and three consecutive trips to the NCAA tournament.
#ThankYouSeniors #GoStanford pic.twitter.com/k1R0Mqbk40
— StanfordMen'sSoccer (@StanfordMSoccer) November 13, 2015
JEREMY GUNN II » In the college game you spend so much time around the player that you want to be around people that make you excited that come to work every day, excited to be on the road and excited to be at training. As a staff we couldn't ask for more out of this team. Our coaching staff does a really good job setting standards for them and the players take it from there. As we've gone from year to year, they've continued to take more and more control and more and more responsibility on leading this great program forward. That's something that's really enjoyable to see.