STANFORD, Calif. – Tomas Hilliard-Arce headed home his third of the season midway through the second half and No. 8 Stanford beat Oregon State 1-0 at Cagan Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
It was about as dominating a 1-0 performance as you could have. The Cardinal (10-2-1, 4-0-1 Pac-12) outshot OSU 23-8, had a 13-3 edge in corners and forced the Beavers' Gage Rogers into a career-high eight saves.
The Beavers (4-9-0, 1-4-0 Pac-12) ultimately caved under the pressure in the 65th minute. Adam Mosharrafa pounded his free kick off the post and Stanford collected the rebound. Charlie Wehan fed it to Tanner Beason on the right side and Beason's inswinger hit Hilliard-Arce's head and glanced to the back post for the winner.
"It's a great ball in by Tanner and a great finish," Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said. "The idea with your team is you want your strikers and attackers to score, but if they don't you want to contribute on set pieces and that was seconds off a set piece. You want to find different ways of winning and that's what did it today."
The goal capped a solid weekend of work, especially offensively, for Hilliard-Arce. The goal was his fourth career game-winner and against Washington on Thursday the All-American center back laid off a beautiful ball for Drew Skundrich in the box to tally his third career assist. Sunday's shutout was also the eighth of the season for Stanford and the Cardinal lowered its team goals against average to 0.53 with its results against Washington and Oregon State.
Inswinger from Tanner and a glancing header from Tomas.
— Stanford M Soccer (@StanfordMSoccer) October 15, 2017
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Stanford is unbeaten halfway through its conference schedule for the second consecutive season and the Cardinal has now won double-digit games in five straight years.
"In the season we have (put people away), but we're playing against very tough opponents," Gunn added of the margin of victory. "We've watched Oregon State and it's been incredible that they've been in some games where they've been clearly on top, done everything to win the game and managed to come out second. Today was different, though. We played great and put them under untold pressure. The team played extremely well. We can complain about not putting them away, but the thing is we played some great soccer today, created chances and our defense held strong again. These games are tough so whenever you move on with a good performance, let's take it."
Oregon State's best opportunity game in the 46th minute when Jalen Markey's shot nearly snuck between the legs of Nico Corti, but Corti snagged it before it crossed the line. It was the redshirt senior's seventh solo shutout of the season, which is tied for 12th in program history.
Amir Bashti almost put the Cardinal up a pair in the 81st minute, but he pounded back-to-back shots off Rogers from inside the box and Foster Langsdorf's final volley in the three-attempt sequence was stopped OSU's sprawling keeper.
"In some games you don't have all the chances we did today," Gunn said. "We don't get worried about the past. Instead we tell our team to look to the future, keep playing the ball, keep moving it and they'll break eventually."
It's quick turnaround for the Cardinal, which leaves Wednesday for the Pacific Northwest and a pair of matches at Washington and Oregon State.
"Sometimes it's a struggle if you've hammered a team," Gunn commented on playing the same teams two weeks in a row. "You can maybe have complacency if that's the case, but we've just been through a tie and a close game so I'd say every player is going to be ready to get back out on the field again."