LOS ANGELES – Drew Skundrich looped a header over the keeper late in the first half and No. 11 Stanford won at UCLA for the third consecutive season with a 1-0 victory on Sunday night.
Stanford (8-2-0, 2-0-0) is now unbeaten in its last seven matches with the Bruins (4-0-3) and also unbeaten in its last seven road Pac-12 matches (6-0-1). Coupled with Thursday's win at San Diego State, the Cardinal has had a six-point conference road trip in three consecutive seasons. Before 2015 it had been nine years since Stanford had swept a Pac-12 weekend away from home.
Stanford's pressure finally paid off in the 35th minute when Sam Werner controlled close to the left sideline. Werner lofted his service into the center of the box and with his back to goal, Skundrich's header looped over the outstretched arm of UCLA's Kevin Silva, hit the crossbar, ricocheted straight down and into the goal.
It was the senior co-captain's third goal of the season, seventh of his career and second at Drake Stadium.
To the back of the net! ?? #Pac12Soccer
— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) October 2, 2017
Watch: https://t.co/ZLABag9Ytt pic.twitter.com/ubdE6lRrTE
Skundrich's goal came minutes after Stanford let a golden chance get away. Silva gave the ball away with an errant pass to his back line, but a pair of Cardinal chances were saved, the first by UCLA's keeper and the second by a defender off the line.
In the third minute, Adam Mosharrafa had a set-piece header go wide and in the 28th Charlie Wehan created some space and sent his attempt over from just inside the top of the 18.
Stanford almost added some insurance late in the match, but a loose ball that fell to Mosharrafa's feet inside the six was again blocked off the line by a Bruin defender.
Nico Corti only needed to make a pair of saves to secure his fifth solo shutout of the season and lower his goals against average to 0.61.
UCLA's best chance came early in the 20th minute when Christian Chavez got behind the defense. Tomas Hilliard-Arce raced back to track him down and Corti came off his line to smother the ball before Chavez could shoot to thwart the threat.
Stanford will have just one match next week when it travels to Berkeley to play Cal on Sunday at 3 p.m. Troy Clardy and Christopher Sullivan will have the call on Pac-12 Bay Area.