LOS ANGELES – The Cardinal is still unbeaten in conference. Foster Langsdorf scored the winner for his team in the 66th minute and No. 12 Stanford won its second consecutive game in Westwood, beating No. 24 UCLA on Sunday night, 3-2.
Stanford (9-2-4, 6-0-1 Pac-12) eliminated the Bruins (7-6-1, 3-4-0 Pac-12) from the league title chase with the result. On 19 points with three matches remaining in the regular season, the Cardinal is eight points clear of second-place San Diego State (8-3-4, 3-2-2 Pac-12) and 10 ahead of Washington (10-4-0, 3-2-0 Pac-12), which has two games in hand.
Stanford, the back-to-back Pac-12 champion, is gunning to become the second program to win at least three consecutive conference titles. UCLA took the league crown for four straight seasons from 2002-05.
"What's been awesome about this group is that we haven't been talking about the outside world much at all," Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said. "The players have done well focusing on the job in hand and in how to perform as best they can. We don't talk about results or where the standings are. Throughout the season, we've worked only on how to play as well as we can. The team has had an exceptional run in a very, very tough league. It's awesome, but it doesn't matter to us. All that matters to is that that we get ready to play Thursday."
The Cardinal rebounded in spectacular fashion to close the first half after Felix Vobejda put UCLA up a goal in the 21st. Sam Werner chipped a ball to the right post from the top of the 18 in the 41st, Bryce Marion settled at the side of the six and slid up top to Drew Skundrich who rocketed his fourth of the season just below the crossbar.
Seventy-two seconds later, Jared Gilbey took a corner from the near side and neatly served the ball up to the head of Tomas Hilliard-Arce, who guided it to the far post to put Stanford up 2-1. It was the junior's third set-piece header in the Cardinal's last five matches.
Brian Iloksi pulled UCLA even in the 60th when he beat Andrew Epstein to the lower right corner, but Stanford would respond again.
Skundrich crossed midfield in the 66th and led Corey Baird to the endline. Baird fed the ball back out in front and Langsdorf calmly guided it home to put Stanford on top, 3-2.
"It was an intriguing game," Gunn commented. "UCLA throws a lot of numbers forward into good attacking position. When they break they're dangerous and when we get the chance to go at them we're dangerous. Our players worked tremendously hard in the first half when they didn't have the ball. There were chances at each end that kept coming, but at the end of day we created just enough more than they did.
"It was a tremendous effort for college soccer and a scintillating game between two very, very good teams. What more can you want? You couldn't ask for more from both programs. It must have been incredibly exiting to watch as a fan and unbelievably hard work to play in as a player."
Langsdorf's winner moved him into a tie with Cal's Christian Thierjung for the conference lead in goals (9). Baird, whose assist was his fifth in the past four games, now has 22 in his career to tie Walter Kingson (1980-83) for seventh in Stanford history.
"Corey has had tremendous season," Gunn said. "He played central midfield at the beginning and did a great job. Since moving to a forward position he's thrived. He's formed a wonderful partnership with Foster. They're very different, get to play varying roles up front and really get to complement each other."
The Cardinal, which notched the program's first win in Westwood last season, has now won three of its last four with UCLA. Stanford is 10-1-3 in its last 14 matches against ranked opponents.
Stanford set a program record with seven conference wins in 2015 and will have three chances to tie or break that mark beginning Thursday when the Cardinal hosts Oregon State (4-6-3, 0-3-2 Pac-12) at 5 p.m. J.B. Long and Kyndra de St. Aubin will call that one on Pac-12 Network, Pac-12 Bay Area and Pac-12 Oregon.
A Stanford win coupled with a Washington loss at Cal would clinch the Cardinal's third consecutive Pac-12 championship. The Huskies and Bears play at 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon in Berkeley.
