Recap: No. 1 Stanford Men’s Soccer falls to Cal in Berkeley
On Halloween, No. 1 Stanford men’s soccer fell to Cal on the road in Berkeley by a final score of 1-0. Cal sophomore midfielder Junhwan Park scored the lone goal of the match for the Golden Bears at 32:31 while Cal redshirt senior Connor Lambe was the winning goalkeeper with three saves, playing all 45:00 of the second half. Cal senior Marco Brougher played all 45:00 in the net for the Golden Bears in the first half, totaling four saves. Stanford redshirt junior Rowan Schnebly was the losing goalkeeper, playing all 90 minutes with one goal allowed and one save. Cal finishes the regular season 6-7-2 overall and 2-5-1 in the ACC while Stanford finishes the regular season 12-2-2 overall and 5-2-1 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Cal-Friday, October 31st
“Naturally we’re disappointed about the result,” Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said after the match. “I mean look, the 27 fouls is a lot and I felt that it was just such a stop, start game. Our opponent barely strang a pass together and they managed to score on one set piece, knockdown moment. We had plenty of moments, we had plenty of chances, we had plenty of shots. So, we’re disappointed at the result, it was a tough game to play in, but we still created plenty of chances and we still could have easily scored goals that would have won us the game. And so as far as that goes, you know, I can’t really complain. You know, the team competed. It was just one of those ugly games to play in and just one knockdown goal wins it, simple as that.”
This match was very chippy from the start as Cal picked up two fouls within the first two minutes. Throughout the entire match, Cal would accumulate 27 fouls while Stanford had 14 fouls. Cal’s physical, chippy play did a great job of disrupting Stanford as the Cardinal were never really able to get into a good flow.
That said, Stanford did have plenty of chances with six corner kicks at 25:22, 35:58, 41:48, 81:34, 84:43, and 85:18 while Cal had just the one corner kick at 20:29. Stanford outshot Cal 14-3 with eight shots on goal. To the credit of both Cal goalkeepers, they were able to get saves on seven of those eight shots on goal.
As for the goal that Cal scored, that came at 32:31 as Park was able to sneak the ball past Schnebly amid a sea of white and black. It wasn’t the prettiest of goals, but if you are Park and the Bears, you’ll absolutely take it.
Towards the end of the match, Stanford continued to fight through the fouls and had plenty of opportunities, but in the end, that one goal was all that Cal needed. 1-0 was the final score as the Golden Bears celebrated a victory over the number one team in the nation.
For Cal, this is a huge win. Winning on Senior Day against your rival is always big, but when your rival is ranked number one in the nation and had a chance to win the ACC title, that makes it all the sweeter. Cal took a page out of the Brad Gilbert playbook of winning ugly and that’s exactly what they did. They played a chippy match and did all they could to disrupt the flow of the Cardinal. It worked out extremely well for them as they were able to get the win. It’ll be interesting to see if they can build on this win in the ACC tournament. They’ll be facing Duke on the road on Wednesday at 4:00 PM PT.
As for Stanford, this is a major disappointment. Had they defeated Cal, they would have won the ACC championship just like the women did and been able to lift a trophy. Instead, they finish second in the league and fell short against their rival. It really doesn’t get any more disappointing than that.
That all said, Stanford has to learn from this match. They have to figure out how to not let overly physical/chippy play bother them. Whether they like it or not, that’s part of the game. They have to be prepared to see that again in the postseason. They still had a great season overall and are well positioned to make a run at a national title. They just have to make sure this match doesn’t lead to them having a poor postseason.
“Oh, I mean you know, not thought about that at all. We have to lick our wounds and we have to get back at it,” Gunn said. “We’ll get back. You know, we’ve still played well enough to win the game and so we just have to get ready for whoever our opponents are. Probably Wednesday, now.”
Up next for Stanford is a home match against Boston College in the ACC tournament. That will begin on Wednesday, November 5th at 6:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
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