Recap: (12) Stanford Men’s Soccer survives Kansas City in second round of NCAA tourney
On Sunday, (12) Stanford men’s soccer defeated Kansas City 1-0 in the second round of the NCAA tournament at Cagan Stadium on The Farm. Stanford defender Alfonso Tenconi-Gradillas scored the lone goal for the Cardinal while goalkeeper Rowan Schnebly picked up the win in the net with three saves to secure the clean sheet. Marc Popow was the losing goalkeeper for the Roos with five saves and the one goal allowed. Stanford advances to the third round of the NCAA tournament where they will face Washington on Sunday, November 30th at home.
BOX SCORE: Kansas City at Stanford-Sunday, November 23rd
“Great, great performance,” Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said after the match. “I think, you know, we were on top from the first whistle and we put them under a lot of pressure. This time of year quite often there’s not as many opportunities, but what we rattled off 20 shots in the end was it? Or 18. But no, we were on top from the beginning, we were asking questions we were rattling them, we just couldn’t find the final touch in front of goal in the first half and we really made it a good soccer team completely suffocate in the first half or we suffocated them, I should say.
“And then second-half they looked a bit more composed and they started to pass it a little bit better… they got a little bit more of the ball and were in it a bit more, but again they weren’t really troubling us too much. It was just very much we were attacking, they were trying to pick us off on the counter attack, and you know, you feel it’s a matter of time but sometimes it never is and so I think it was great for us to just keep pushing and keep pushing, we score off a set piece go one nil up and then you know I thought we saw the game out really really well apart from giving away a great chance right at the end. Other than that I thought we were rock solid the whole game. So can we say we were rock solid for 89 minutes and 50 seconds?”
Neither team scored in the first half. However, Stanford did outshoot Kansas City 6-2 while also having a 9-0 advantage in corner kicks while also forcing three saves. Kansas City did not force any saves in the first half. At the break, it was clear that Stanford had the edge even though it remained scoreless at the break.
“No, I think we were just really positive with our play,” Gunn said. “And whenever we were playing positive passes, our attackers were really lively tonight. I thought Tomo and Trevor were an absolute handful at the beginning of the game. Fletcher was thrusting forward at the beginning of the game and they were a little bit too hot to handle in the first half and I thought that was the difference in the game at that point in time.”
In the second half, Stanford got off to a good start with a corner kick at 53:20 and again at 61:05. At 63:53, shortly after a foul against Kansas City, Alfonso Tenconi-Gradillas found the bottom left of the goal off his right foot thanks to an assist from Jack Pymm. That made it a 1-0 lead for the Cardinal, which would end up being the final score.
“Yeah, so we’ve been working on some set pieces, some new ones for this game,” Tenconi-Gradillas explained. “You had the time, which was nice this last week and this was one of them. Big emphasis on going for the ball and having eyes for the ball in that set piece. I just had a feeling it was gonna land there and so I was just happy to be able to get something on it.”
“No, it was a good delivery by Jack and Alfie got on the end of it and no, got, finished it from close range,” Gunn said of the goal. “They tend to drop off quite deep in front of the goal and so the first contact is very close to goal and so that was something we hoped to have happen. And so it was a great goal and worthy of a winner. You know, you think at this time of year against a good attacking team, there’s a rock solid defensive performance, a great playing performance. And I don’t know, if we’d got a goal from the first half pressure, we might have settled even more and got a bit more assurance in the game. But very very happy and really proud of the way the team played tonight.”
Stanford would get corner kicks at 66:54 and 75:12, unable to tack on a second goal. As for Kansas City, while they weren’t able to even things up, they did make things interesting. Stanford picked up a pair of yellow cards at 84:45 (Will Cleary Handball) and at 85:19 (Dylan Groeneveld Time Wasting). Kansas City also had corner kicks at 82:10 and 89:07, forcing a shot at 89:57, which was saved by Schnebly. The end result was a win for the Cardinal, but they certainly opened the door for Kansas City to tie things up.
“Yeah, we knew they had a lot of threat up top and then number eleven is really quick and pacey, so we knew that they were gonna be trying to sit off and go at us at the counter,” Tenconi-Gradillas said of getting the shutout. “So making sure we backed our play very nicely and always had numbers at the back to keep them shut out, but yeah, and just play with a lot of aggression. I think we did that very well today.”
Once again, Tenconi-Gradillas came through in the clutch. Since making the switch to the back row as a defender, he’s actually been more effective scoring due to the set piece chances that he’s been getting. He did a great job of taking advantage of that, which was crucial for the Cardinal given it was the only goal.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s been a big learning curve for me,” Tenconi-Gradillas said of the position switch. “But just trying to stay positive and reframe it as a chance to get more touches on the ball, improve myself as a soccer player. And yeah, I mean the, it’s always nice to stay on the field for 90 minutes and coached laughed at me earlier in the season and jokes ran about how I’d probably be scoring more goals as a center back than as a striker this year just because of the threat that I can have in the set pieces and so now, that’s been great. I’ve loved helping the team however I can and I just hopefully can keep going.”
The win for men’s soccer helped cap off a great weekend on The Farm with women’s volleyball sweeping Cal and the football team defeating Cal as well to reclaim The Axe. Tenconi-Gradillas had fun being on hand to watch the football team take care of business.
“Amazing, amazing stuff,” Tenconi-Gradillas said of the Big Game victory. “It was awesome to see. Yeah, it was my first, well, the first time I actually got to watch the Big Game at Stanford for the last four years because we’ve always had the tournament, thankfully. But no, I mean, amazing stuff from them. I know they’re putting in a lot of effort this year and Andrew Luck’s and they’ve got a whole reshuffle and so I mean, they’re doing great. We love to see; I mean the American football team doing well is going to boost everyone in the athletics department and so we love to see it and congrats to them.”
Up next for Stanford is a home match in the third round of the NCAA tournament against Washington on Sunday, November 30th at 5:00 PM PT on ESPN+. That’ll reignite an old Pac-12 rivalry on The Farm.
“Oh fantastic,” Gunn said of facing the Huskies again. “You know, we’ve had such a great tradition of great matches with each other. That tradition was taken away from us and so let’s bring it on.”
“Yeah, I mean, we can’t wait,” Tenconi-Gradillas added. “It was hard not to see the score before starting this game and we were honestly even hungrier to play UW as we have been to play Kansas City today. So, no, we’re super excited for the Pac-12 rivalry and hopefully things will go our way this next Sunday.”
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