BERKELEY, Calif. – Forced to play from behind for the first time this season, No. 2 Stanford came roaring back to beat Cal in Friday's Big Clásico, 2-1, and win its sixth consecutive game in Berkeley.
Arda Bulut scored the equalizer just before halftime and freshman Gabe Segal connected on his first game winner in the 70th minute as the Cardinal (6-0, 1-0) kept its perfect start to the season intact. Stanford has won its first six matches for the first time in 17 years. It went 7-0 to begin its 2002 campaign.
Stanford, which had posted three straight shutouts and four in its first five outings, was in an early hole after Cal's Jonathan Estrada scored his first collegiate goal in the eighth minute off a centering pass from Francisco Perez. The Golden Bears, not content for one, continued to press its advantage, but the Cardinal was able to weather the storm.
"All credit goes to Cal in the first half," Knowles Family Director of Men's Soccer Jeremy Gunn said. "They were excellent and a step sharper than us in almost every category. We could have discussed tactics or really everything at halftime, but honestly it was that we just weren't doing what we normally do."
It was another freshman, Ousseni Bouda, who made some magic down the right sideline to create Stanford's first goal. Sandwiched between two Cal (3-2-1, 0-1) defenders, Bouda beat both to the endline and fed it across to Bulut at the top of the six. Bulut and Cal keeper Drake Callender slid into each other head on, Bulut won the race to the ball and it skipped up and into the goal in the 40th minute.
"That was huge," Gunn said. "It got us back into a game that we'd been second best in."
The winner was put in by Gabe Segal in the 70th minute after some strong work in the midfield. Thirty-five seconds after coming on, Jack O'Brien poked it to Segal near the center circle. The freshman took two touches to cover considerable distance, shed his defender and unloaded from 20 to beat Callender to the left post for his third goal of the young season.
"We won the ball in a positive area because we were doing things we hadn't done in first half, " Gunn added. "I was really proud of our response after halftime. It was an incredible run and empathic finish. There was so much work to be done when we picked up the ball."
Stanford returns home to host San Jose State on Tuesday at 7 p.m. and will play at UC Santa Barbara next Saturday, Sept. 28, before getting into the teeth of its conference schedule.
