No. 18 Stanford (5-1-3, 2-0 Pac-12)
at Cal (5-3-2, 1-1 Pac-12) | Sunday • 3 p.m.
Edwards Stadium • Berkeley, Calif.
Tickets
Television • Pac-12 Networks
Live Statistics • CalBears.com
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LOOKING AHEAD » No. 18 Stanford (5-1-3, 2-0) is at Cal (5-3-2, 1-1) on Sunday, Oct. 7 at 3 p.m. for a match broadcast on Pac-12 Network and Pac-12 Bay Area with Joe Castellano and Kelly Gray on the call.
LAST TIME OUT » Stanford dominated the second halves of both games and opened conference action with a pair of convincing 3-0 wins over visiting San Diego State and UCLA last weekend. All six of the Cardinal's goals were scored between the 52nd and 80th minutes by five different players. Stanford had entered Pac-12 play with seven goals in its first seven matches.
STANFORD-CAL SERIES » Stanford is 31-22-9 in 62 all-time meetings with the Bears dating back to 1973. The Cardinal is 8-0-1 in its last nine games against Cal with four coming in overtime. The Cardinal's 3-0 victory in its most recent visit to Berkeley on Oct. 8, 2017 is the only win during the recent run that has been by more than one goal. The Bears' last win in the overall series came on Oct. 20, 2013 (1-0).
BOUNCING BACK » The Cardinal's weekend sweep was a welcome response after it dropped its first match of the season on Sept. 20 to Pacific, 1-0, its first loss in 363 days. That result ended the Stanford's program-record unbeaten streak at 21 consecutive matches and also snapped its 12-match home unbeaten run. The loss was Stanford's first since Sept. 23, 2017 at Saint Louis (2-0) and its first home loss since Sept. 9, 2017 against Tulsa (2-0). Stanford still has not been beaten in two consecutive matches in the same season since 2012, Jeremy Gunn's first year as head coach.
BASHTI POW, AGAIN » Senior Amir Bashti had a goal and an assist in each of Stanford's wins over San Diego State and UCLA and was named Pac-12 Player of the Week for the second time in the last three weeks on Tuesday morning. Stanford's striker, who has four goals in the past four matches and is second in the conference with five overall this season, also earned spots on the national teams of the week selected by College Soccer News and Top Drawer Soccer.
BEASON DELIVERS » Redshirt junior co-captain Tanner Beason assisted on three of his team's six goals over the weekend and has five on the young season, as many as his first two years of action combined. Beason leads the conference and is 18th in the country in assists per game (0.56).
ROAD WARRIORS » The Cardinal is unbeaten (9-0-1) in road Pac-12 matches the past two seasons, going a perfect 5-0 in 2017 and 4-0-1 in 2016. Stanford's last league loss away from Cagan Stadium came at Washington, 2-1, on Nov. 2, 2015.
CARDINAL QUICK HITTERS »
- Stanford cemented its dynasty with yet another clinical postseason performance in 2017. On a sequence that began with a throw-in deep in opponent territory, Sam Werner stripped an Indiana player with one touch and stabbed a right-footed shot under the crossbar on his next, at 102:03, to beat the Hoosiers 1-0 and give Stanford just the second three-year championship run in NCAA history.
- Stanford is just the second program to win three straight NCAA titles. Virginia won four in a row from 1991-94. It is also the seventh program to win at least three national championships along with Saint Louis (10), Indiana (8), Virginia (7), San Francisco (4), UCLA (4) and Maryland (3).
- Stanford went 52-7-10 (.826) during its three-year championship run.
- The Cardinal did not allow a goal throughout the entire 2017 tournament for the second straight year and upped its NCAA-record postseason shutout streak to 12 - a stretch of 1,214 minutes and 20 seconds. The only other programs to go through a postseason without allowing a goal are Wisconsin (1995) and San Francisco (1976).
- The Cardinal is 32-3-7 (.845) in conference since 2014, has won eight in a row and is unbeaten in its last 13 matches against Pac-12 opponents.
BACK IN THE RANKINGS » Stanford moved to 29-14-7 all-time against ranked opponents under Jeremy Gunn with its victory on Sept. 14 against No. 15 UMass Lowell, including 22-2-5 in its last 29. The Cardinal themselves dropped out of the United Soccer Coaches poll on Sept. 11 and worked its way back in at No. 18 this past Tuesday. That match against UMass Lowell was the Cardinal's first as an unranked team since Oct. 9, 2016 against Oregon State, a span of 706 days. Stanford entered conference play that season out of the top 25, but jumped back up to No. 16 following three 1-0 wins over Cal, No. 16 Washington and the Beavers. In fact, after falling out of the poll following a 2-1 loss at San Francisco on Sept. 23, 2016, the Cardinal went 12-1-2 over its final 15 matches and won its second consecutive national championship.
DEFENSE WINS » With shutouts in seven of its first nine matches, the Cardinal leads the nation in goals against average (0.207) and redshirt freshman goalkeeper Andrew Thomas is tops individually in that category (0.208).
SHUTOUT STREAK SNAPPED » Stanford had an active shutout streak of 974:15 before Georgetown scored on Sept. 3, the longest stretch in program history. Ethan Lochner's 65th-minute tally was the first goal the Cardinal had surrendered since a Brian Iloski penalty kick for UCLA on November 2, 2017, a span of nine matches. It was also Stanford's first goal allowed from open play since October 19, 2017 at Washington when Kyle Coffee headed in a cross (1,208:02). The Cardinal's nine-match streak of not allowing a goal from November 5, 2017 to August 31, 2018 is tied for the eighth-longest in NCAA history.
NEW LOOK, SAME STANFORD » A process-oriented bunch, Stanford headed into 2018 with the task of replacing seven starters from a year ago, including the conference's career goal scoring leader Foster Langsdorf and 2017 Top Drawer Soccer Player of the Year Tomas Hilliard-Arce. Those two, along with Corey Baird, Nico Corti, Bryce Marion, Drew Skundrich and Sam Werner led Stanford to three national championships, four Pac-12 titles, a 65-10-13 overall record (.813) and 30-3-7 (.838) conference mark in their four years on The Farm. They combined for 71 percent of Stanford's scoring last season (34 of 48) and are all playing professionally. (Nico Corti – RGVFC; Foster Langsdorf – Timbers FC2; Tomas Hilliard-Arce – LA Galaxy; Bryce Marion – RGVFC; Corey Baird – Real Salt Lake; Drew Skundrich – Bethlehem Steel FC; Sam Werner – Israel). The Cardinal has started at least four freshmen in seven of its first nine matches this season.
SIMILAR TO 2016? » Stanford returned a loaded bunch last season, but after its first championship the Cardinal was also forced to search for answers at key spots the following year. The Cardinal had to replace five starters, including MAC Hermann Trophy winner Jordan Morris and two-time Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year Brandon Vincent. Those two, along with Slater Meehan, Ty Thompson and Eric Verso, accounted for 53 percent of the Cardinal's scoring (23-of-43) during its 2015 title run. Stanford started its 2016 season 3-2-3, but only lost once again all season, finishing 12-1-2 in its last 15 en route to title No. 2.
GREAT UNDER GUNN » One of four coaches to win NCAA titles in both Division I and Division II, head coach Jeremy Gunn has led a team to the College Cup final four times in the past seven seasons. He and Virginia's Bruce Arena (1991-94) are the only coaches to win three consecutive NCAA men's soccer championships. His teams are 89-26-21 (.732) in his six-plus seasons on The Farm and he owns a career record of 276-87-52 (.728) in 19-plus seasons, a mark which makes him the fourth winningest active coach at the Division I level and the 18th winningest coach all-time (both by percentage). Gunn and his staff were named the 2017 National Staff of the Year by United Soccer Coaches and he also secured the first national men's coach of the year award handed out by Top Drawer Soccer.
KENNEDY PROMOTED » On August 22, third-year assistant Oige Kennedy was promoted to associate head coach. Working primarily with the Cardinal's keepers, Kennedy's first two years on The Farm have been hugely successful. In 2017, Nico Corti put together the best statistical season for a goalkeeper in Stanford men's soccer history. He finished second in the country in both goals against average (0.386) and solo shutouts (14), set Pac-12 records in both categories, a school record in goals against average and tied the school record in solo shutouts. A year prior, Andrew Epstein made two consecutive penalty kick saves in the College Cup final against Wake Forest to lead the Cardinal to its second straight national championship. That season, Epstein was named the College Cup's Defensive Most Outstanding Player, a United Soccer Coaches Second Team All-American, CoSIDA First Team Academic All-American and finished seventh in the country in goals against average (0.571). Corti (0.00) and Epstein (0.34) are first and second in NCAA history in career postseason goals against average and just the fifth and sixth keepers in college soccer history to go through an entire postseason without allowing a single goal.
MAKE IT FOUR » Stanford was unbeaten in conference action for the first time last season (9-0-1) and added a 2017 conference title to championships from 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2001. Stanford became the second Pac-12 school to win four in a row. UCLA won the same number of consecutive conference crowns from 2002-05. Jeremy Gunn is the only coach in league history to win more than two consecutive Pac-12 titles as UCLA's four-year run was split evenly between Tom Fitzgerald and Jorge Salcedo.
THE CAPITAL OF COLLEGE SOCCER » Last season Stanford became the first Division I school to win national titles in both men's and women's soccer in the same season. The men's championship came one week after the Cardinal women knocked off UCLA, 3-2, for that program's second national crown. Stanford has won more NCAA titles (117) than any other school and owns an active 42-year stretch with at least one NCAA team championship dating back to 1976-77.
SCORE TWICE AND WIN » Stanford has scored two or more goals in 70 of Jeremy Gunn's 136 matches as Stanford's head coach and is 64-0-6 in those games. The Cardinal hasn't lost when scoring at least two goals since Nov. 11, 2010, when it fell 3-2 at Cal.
FOREIGN TOUR » In late March, Stanford went on a foreign tour of England that included stops in London and Manchester and matches against academy sides from Fulham (W, 3-0), Queens Park Rangers (W, 5-2) and Bradford City (W, 3-1). A 20-minute documentary from Ingredient Films on the team's trip has garnered more than 80,000 views on YouTube.