STANFORD, Calif. - The Cardinal continued its winning ways on Sunday evening, defeating the visiting Spartans 4-0 in Cagan Stadium. Stanford improves to a perfect 4-0 record on the year while San Jose State falls to 1-2-1.
"It's a great way to end the first home stand," said The Knowles Family Director of Men's Soccer Jeremy Gunn. "Yet again, I'm very pleased with the attitude of the team and the work rate continues to set a really high standard."
Stanford began the match in command and controlled the pace of play throughout the entire 90 minutes. The Cardinal fired off 26 shots on the day including 17 on target throughout the match.
"I think on certain days we're a little too much for some of the teams we've been playing against," explained Gunn. "Today I thought we created some great chances, had some wonderful, fluid soccer, and it was exciting to watch."
Carlo Agostinelli scored the first goal in the 23rd minute, capitalizing off a rebound from Fletcher Bank's shot. It proved to be the decisive moment of the match heading into the halftime break.
The Cardinal was able to double its lead thanks to the immense pressure it put on the San Jose State defense. Stanford held on to its one goal lead until Bank scored his own rebound goal off Liam Doyle's shot in the 72nd minute.
"San Jose didn't have quite as much of the ball at times but when they managed to counter attack and open us up, they were very quick and dangerous because of it," added Gunn. "The defenders still had to earn the shutout which was important and then as a group, overall player for player, it was a great performance."
The Cardinal defense held strong and pushed forward to score two more goals and top the season high mark for goals in a match. The third strike came courtesy of Will Reilly who launched a shot to the top left corner of the goal in the 76th minute.
Four minutes later, Liam Doyle scored his own goal to push the tally to four on night. Kwabena Kwakwa and Shane de Flores set up Doyle's goal with pinpoint passing to cut through the Spartan defense.
"It was so exciting having a huge crowd, it was a wonderful atmosphere with a local rivalry and tons of fans," said Gunn. "I think every player had to be really enjoying the moment. Thank you to everyone who came out, I'm sure they couldn't have been disappointed with the exciting performance on the day."
Stanford held strong through the final minutes of the match to earn its third shutout of the season. Matt Frank recorded two saves on the evening and combined with Eliot Jones for the clean sheet in goal.
"We'll let the players be proud of how they played tonight, then we get to regenerate tomorrow and we're excited to get on the road in a very tough test at Creighton," said Gunn. "It's a beautiful stadium, a great atmosphere, and it should be a wonderful challenge and that's all we want all the way through the season."
Next up, Stanford will face it's first contest on the road this week as it heads to Omaha, Nebraska to take on No. 7 Creighton on Friday.
"We just want to be continuously challenged and pushed, and hopefully through those moments we can keep growing as a team," explained Gunn. "There's been lots of great moments in the first four games and there's still lots of things that we can be working on that we're excited to keep building."