SEATTLE – Stanford is still alive in its hunt for a sixth consecutive Pac-12 title. The No. 5 Cardinal went on the road and beat No. 1 Washington on Sunday, 1-0, to keep its league championship dreams in play.
Stanford (13-1-3, 6-1-2) is on 20 points, one behind the Huskies (14-3-0, 7-2-0), and each team has one match remaining. If the Cardinal beats Cal (7-6-3, 3-4-2) in its regular-season finale at Cagan Stadium on Thursday night and Washington draws or loses at Oregon State (8-5-2, 5-2-2) on Friday, Stanford would be crowned Pac-12 champions. If Stanford draws with the Golden Bears and the Huskies lose the following night in Corvallis, the Cardinal and UW would be co-champions of the Pac-12 and tiebreakers would be used only to determine the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
"The message coming into this one was the same as always: prepare to play our best soccer," Knowles Family Director of Men's Soccer Jeremy Gunn said. "Regardless of all the external things like points and standings, we were looking compete and today was a complete performance. We started the game very brightly and won more of the individual battles that we didn't the first time around against Washington."
It was a moment of magic between a pair of freshmen that earned Stanford its fourth straight victory at Husky Soccer Stadium. With under four minutes remaining in the first half, Ousseni Bouda jetted up the left side and used his considerable speed to get past Kasey French at the edge of the box. French raced to catch up when Bouda stopped and turned on a dime to create some space at the corner of the penalty area.
It appeared as if Bouda's rocket in the direction of the far post was going in, but freshman Gabe Segal got his head on it to make absolutely sure there was no chance of it going wide. It was Segal's team-leading sixth goal of the season and Bouda's fifth assist.
"That was a fantastic goal to win any game," Gunn added. "What a great strike from Ousseni. At the time I couldn't tell whether Gabe had got on it, but he was in the right spot like every good forward should be. It was a great goal."
Goalkeeper Andrew Thomas made some big plays at the back to secure his eighth solo shutout of the season and lower his goals against average to 0.60. As a team, Stanford's effort was its 11th clean sheet of the year and the Cardinal is now allowing just 0.56 goals per game.
In the 27th minute, Thomas came off his line to intercept a left-footed cross from Lucas Meek that was destined for the head of a Husky in the box. Six minutes later, Jaret Townsend had the ball with his back to goal and Thomas smothered it before the UW midfielder had an opportunity to turn and shoot.
The Cardinal had a couple of fortunate breaks as well. Just after intermission, Imanol Rosales had a free kick from just outside the box hit the crossbar and in the 63rd another Washington free kick found the head of Townsend at the far post, but somehow his header back across the goal had such spin that it hit just in front of the line and kicked back out instead of trickling across for the equalizer.
"We were in a relatively comfortable position in the first half, but were getting tested at the beginning of the second," Gunn said. "It was shields up, rock-solid defending against a team that was throwing everything at us. We weathered a bit of that storm, got back into a better position and from then on it was back-and-forth. Today was one of those tough games where we were very good defensively and calmed down enough chances to win the game."
Thomas was perfectly positioned and made a couple of more saves in the 78th and 82nd minutes on Washington attempts from the top of the 18.
The Cardinal moved to 31-16-10 all-time against ranked opponents under Jeremy Gunn with the win, including 24-4-6 in its last 34, and is 7-1-3 in its last 11 against top-10 teams. Stanford is 3-1-1 against the nation's No. 1 team since Gunn arrived in 2012, with all of those games coming on the road. In addition to Sunday at Washington, the Cardinal lost to No. 1 Cal on Oct. 20, 2013 (1-0), tied No. 1 UCLA on Oct. 30, 2014 (2-2) and had quarterfinal triumphs at No. 1 Wake Forest in both 2015 (2-1) and 2017 (2-0).
