STANFORD, Calif. – There were no signs of jet lag in Logan Panchot's game on Sunday. Fresh off a cross-country flight, the Cardinal right back slammed home his first career goal early in the second half to push No. 5 Stanford to a 3-1 win over Yale.
Panchot played a full 90 in Stanford's 1-0 win over San Francisco on Friday night and then jetted to New York for his brother's Saturday wedding. Back for the Cardinal's (6-1-0) early afternoon match with the Bulldogs (2-4-0), the freshman sprinted up the right side in the 51st minute as the ball was switched over from the left by Derek Waldeck and Foster Langsdorf. Panchot took a touch from 20 yards away and rocketed his goal with a low strike into the side netting at the far post to put Stanford up 2-1.
"Shame on him for having a wedding during the season," Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn joked. "Logan is tremendously fit. I wouldn't advise flying cross country between doubleheaders all the time and we had to be smart about it. If he'd been struggling then maybe that's an excuse to give somebody else more of a go, but he's been doing so well that he's playing a lot on merit. What a fantastic strike."
The goal broke a 1-1 deadlock after scores a minute apart early in the first half. Waldeck's corner found Tomas Hilliard-Arce's head at 13:39 to put Stanford up, but on Yale's next time down the field Justin Lobe launched a long throw into the box that was headed home by Kyle Kenagy to bring the Bulldogs level.
"We score the goal, we're still in celebration mode and they've not been into our final third," Gunn said. "They play a positive ball forward and there's a bit of a defensive mix up which creates the long throw. The player rose well and that's a good header, but I feel that we can prevent something like that with the play before."
Tanner Beason added some late insurance with a penalty in the 84th minute and the Cardinal scored three for the fourth time this season.
Goalkeeper Nico Corti made his customary, match-defining save in the 70th to keep Stanford up. Yale's DJ Palmer faced Corti 1v1 after a through ball split two Cardinal defenders. Corti came off his line nearly to the top of the box, met Palmer face-to-face and made a sliding save to maintain Stanford's lead.
"The truth is that we'd started the game well and then we gave them something to get excited about and so that changes the game a little bit," Gunn added. "They were packing it in and difficult to break down and you have to know that sometimes it's going to take time. But if we're going to have the ball a lot and we keep passing and moving, the holes will eventually show and I think that's probably the fairer reflection of what happened today."
Stanford, 6-1 through seven matches for the third time in the past four years, will be on the road for the next month beginning with Saturday's date at Saint Louis. The Billikens will wrap up the Cardinal's nonconference slate and Stanford will begin Pac-12 play with games at San Diego State, UCLA and Cal in later this month and into early October.
