Stanford Silences CalStanford Silences Cal
Men's Soccer

Stanford Silences Cal

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Box Score

BERKELEY, Calif. – Three different players scored and No. 8 Stanford used a varied and potent attack to silence No. 24 Cal 3-0 in the Bears' Pac-12 home opener on Sunday afternoon.
 
The win was a school-record sixth in a row for Stanford (9-2, 3-0 Pac-12) against Cal (7-3, 2-1 Pac-12), surpassing the Cardinal's five-game stretch from 1999-2001. Stanford is unbeaten through three Pac-12 matches on three shutouts for the second consecutive season.
 
The Cardinal quickly put Cal in a hole, scoring its earliest goal of the year in the fourth minute. Bryce Marion jetted down the right side and played a cross to the far post and Foster Langsdorf. Langsdorf headed it back across the face of goal to Corey Baird and Baird's diving header bounced into the back of the net for his third of the season.
 
Ten minutes later it was another header, this time from Tomas Hilliard-Arce, who rose above everyone in the box and rocketed home his second of 2017 off a Jared Gilbey corner.
 
"We always want to start on the front foot and I thought we were magnificent at the beginning of the game," Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said. "We played wonderfully incisive, attacking soccer and in that period we were too much to handle and deservedly got in the lead."

Cal right the ship for the remainder of the first half and early in the second and was able to settle on the ball, but couldn't sneak one past Nico Corti, who collected his sixth clean sheet of the year and lowered his goals against average to 0.55. In the 43rd there was a giveaway at the back, but the redshirt senior raced forward and smothered Spencer Held's 1v1 attempt at the top of the 18.
 
Corti came up big again in the 64th minute and the Cardinal turned that momentum into a goal at the other end. Some fancy footwork and passing led to Langsdorf getting free in the box. Cal's Drake Callender came off his line to knock it away, but Charlie Wehan pounced on the loose ball and centered it to Amir Bashti. Bashti, while falling, used his left to beat a Cal defender on the line and seal the win.
 
"At 2-0 it's still very much a game and Nico was keeping the shutout going at those pivotal points," Gunn added. "Once we got the third goal there's still a long way to go, but we're in a good position and it's going to be so tough for them to get all the way back."

Sunday was the sixth time in 11 matches Stanford has scored three or more goals, something it did seven times all of last year and eight times in the championship season of 2015. The Cardinal, which has nine goals through three conference matches, hasn't had a better offensive start to a Pac-12 season since 2001.  
 
"It's a testament to the way we're passing and moving the ball," Gunn said. "We say we play our best soccer when people are moving off each other and they really did that well today. Attacking-wise you have to look at the game and ask yourself what you're going to stop. We got our set-piece goal, we got our open-play goal with a cross and some lovely passing and we had lots of other good chances from flowing soccer. Certainly we're threatening in all different ways and that's exciting."

Stanford is back home for the first time in nearly a month when it hosts No. 22 Washington on Thursday, Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. on Pac-12 Networks.