STANFORD, Calif. – Three-time defending Pac-12 champion Stanford won three of the league's postseason awards for the second consecutive season on Tuesday afternoon when the league announced its yearly awards as determined by a polling of the conference's coaches.
Junior forward Foster Langsdorf was named Co-Pac-12 Player of the Year, junior defender Tomas Hilliard-Arce was selected Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and Jeremy Gunn earned Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors. The three highlighted a group of seven Stanford student-athletes that received all-conference accolades.
Langsdorf has a career-high 12 goals for the Cardinal in 2016 and won his first career Pac-12 Player of the Week award earlier today for the game winner he headed home in the 98th minute at Cal on Friday afternoon. The management science and engineering major finished his regular season as the Pac-12 leader in both goals (12) and points (26). He is ninth nationally in both total goals and goals per game (0.67) and 10th in game-winning goals (5). Langsdorf is one of three Stanford players with at least five game winners in a season in the past 19 years (Jordan Morris – 2015; Jamie Clark – 1998). He is Stanford's fourth-ever Pac-12 Player of the Year, joining Jordan Morris (2015), Roger Levesque (2001) and Ryan Nelsen (2000).
Hilliard-Arce made sure the Pac-12's top defensive honor stayed on The Farm as well. Brandon Vincent won the award, which was instituted in 2014, in each of its first two years of existence.
The junior has scored on three set-pieces this season and assisted on one of Langsdorf's league-leading 12 goals all while anchoring the Cardinal's back line. Hilliard-Arce has started each of the 59 career games in which he has appeared, including 17 this season. Stanford is 18th nationally in team goals against average (0.73) and only surrendered six goals in conference matches, the program's lowest total since 2002 (5). In Hilliard-Arce's three years at Stanford the Cardinal has a goals against average of 0.73.
Since Hilliard-Arce and Langsdorf arrived on campus in 2014, the Cardinal has gone 42-8-10, won three conference titles and one national title.
In five years at Stanford, Jeremy Gunn has gone 61-23-15 (.692) and has now won three consecutive Pac-12 Coach of the Year awards, becoming just the second in conference history to do so. His program is the second-winningest in the nation since 2014 with a .783 winning percentage and is even better in Pac-12 play, combining to go 21-3-6 (.800) the past three seasons.
Gunn is the third-winningest active Division I coach by percentage. He owns a career record of 248-84-46 (.717), behind only Carlos Somoano at North Carolina (.754) and Ray Reid at UConn (.753).
Langsdorf and Hilliard-Arce headlined a group of seven Stanford men's soccer players that claimed spots on various All-Pac-12 teams on Tuesday.
Stanford led the way with a school-record tying five players on the All-Pac-12 first team. In addition to Langsdorf and Hilliard-Arce, junior forward Corey Baird, redshirt junior goalkeeper Andrew Epstein and senior defender Brian Nana-Sinkam gave the Cardinal nearly half of the 11-member squad. It's the most conference first teamers for the Cardinal since it had five in 2000, the first year of Pac-12 men's soccer.
Hilliard-Arce was the league's leading vote-getter. It was the first first-team nod for each of the five.
Junior midfield Drew Skundrich earned his first conference postseason accolade in being named to the All-Pac-12 second team and fellow junior midfielder Bryce Marion also received his first award, receiving All-Pac-12 honorable mention.
The Cardinal begins its NCAA tournament at home on Sunday, Nov. 20 at 5 p.m. against the winner of Thursday night's match between CSUN and Pacific.