STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford opened the 2025 preseason with a shutout victory on Sunday afternoon, defeating San Francisco 2-0 at Cagan Stadium. The win marked the Cardinal’s fourth consecutive preseason clean sheet.
"I'm sure there's so much both teams want to work on but taking that away, it was a fantastic game," said Knowles Family Director of Men's Soccer Jeremy Gunn. "It was super exciting to see everybody back on the pitch, it was great to see the freshmen get their first minutes, and all in all it was a great game of soccer."
It was a stalemate in the early going between both programs, with both sides going into halftime scoreless with few threatening chances.
The Cardinal's offensive pressure shifted momentum towards the home side in the second half, breaking through in the 65th minute when Shane De Flores collected a loose ball at the goal line and tucked it inside the right post to push Stanford out front.
Minutes later, the Cardinal doubled its advantage with a freshman-to-freshman connection, as Jude Stone buried his first goal in a Cardinal uniform off a Brad Bennett assist.
"It was a fairly even start to the game but in the second half, I felt we started to take over," Gunn added. "We continued to put pressure on them, we slowly became more and more dominant and I thought the goals came at fair times for us."
Stanford's defense limited the Dons to just two shots in the second half, closing out the win with a combined shutout from each of the Cardinal's four goalkeepers.
The Cardinal finished the game with a 16-6 shot advantage, including a 9-2 margin in the second half. Twenty-five players touched the pitch during Sunday's contest, giving nearly the entire roster valuable minutes before the regular season gets underway later this month.
It was also the first opportunity for the top-ranked freshman class in the ACC to step onto Cagan, as Bennett, Stone, Tomo Allen, Victor Fung, Brayden Montague, Joshua Partal, Jack Pymm, and Aidan Reilly all saw their first collegiate action.
Stanford continues its preseason action on Tuesday against Cal State Bakersfield, before hosting a third and final preseason match next weekend against Cal Poly.