On Thursday, #7 Stanford men’s soccer defeated #8 Creighton 3-1 in their regular season opener on The Farm. Redshirt sophomore midfielder Shane de Flores (18:35), sophomore midfielder Zach Bohane (25:52), and freshman forward Duncan Jarvie (65:54) scored goals for the Cardinal while Alfie Pope (41:16) scored the lone goal for the Blue Jays. Jack Morris (3 saves & 1 goal allowed) picked up the win at goalkeeper for the Cardinal while Nathan Schnur (5 saves & 3 goals allowed) was awarded the loss for the Blue Jays. Stanford improves to 1-0 on the season while Creighton falls to 0-1.

BOX SCORE: Creighton at Stanford-Thursday, August 24th

“No matter how well you do in preseason, you can really build confidence, but you never really know what’s going to happen in the first game,” Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said after the match. “And I just thought that was just an absolutely emphatic performance. I think Johnny is a really good coach, I think they’re a very very good team, they got some incredible players, and they were always in the game. They were always capable of scoring, but in truth in fairness, our team generated so many chances that even though it was always tight and could go either way in the end, it was such a dominating performance and when you look at chance creation, that’s really really exciting.

“And so, first game out, so many really good performances. There’s always a few things here and there, but just very very pleased with how we performed and really excited about how we came out of the blocks on the first game.”

The match got off to a rocky start for both teams as three yellow cards were dished out between the two teams within the first 10 minutes. Will Reilly was given a yellow card for Stanford while Luke Mitchell and Malte Kaiser were given yellow cards for Creighton. After that, both teams settled in and the referees appeared to let them play more, feeling like they had set the tone early on.

Stanford was the first team to score at the 18:35 mark as Shane de Flores found the top right of the goal off his right foot thanks to a pretty assist from Palmer Bank. The goal was scored off a throw in at the 18:31 mark, so Stanford took advantage of that opportunity.

Shane de Flores had another chance to score a goal at the 21:37 mark, but the shot was blocked, keeping it at a 1-0 score. The Cardinal wouldn’t remain at one goal for long as Zach Bohane scored a goal at the 25:52 mark off an assist from Fletcher Bank. Like the goal score by de Flores, Bohane found the top right of the goal, only it was off his left foot. It was now a 2-0 lead for the Cardinal.

“Well, I mean, you want to play, you know, we want to be playing with intensity,” Gunn said. “We want to play at a tempo that makes other people feel uncomfortable and I just felt that after the first fifteen minutes, our attacking players just looked lively and just always looked like they could be creating chances and that we were troubling their defenders.

“And so, I think we passed the ball very well and we just managed to play around their press, and that’s what really got us going in that they were trying to pressure us and we were just good enough, just clean enough to move the ball around them. And as a result, we were then getting our attacking players, really stretching their defenders. And I think that’s what was key at the beginning of the game.”

“I think just the press, the high press,” Jarvie said of the key to their 2-0 lead. “I mean, the whole game we just kept pressing high, pressing high, and then second half, continued that and then pays off. So, just hard work.”

Towards the end of the first half, the Blue Jays ratcheted up their offensive pressure, forcing corner kicks at the 38:08, 38:36, 40:10, and 41:00 marks. The fourth time was the charm for the Blue Jays as Alfie Pope found the bottom left part of the net at the 41:16 mark off an assist from Miguel Arilla. No other goals were scored the rest of the half, making it a 2-1 lead for the Cardinal at halftime.

“Yeah, just continue putting the hurt on them,” Jarvie said of the message from Gunn at halftime. “Stay with our high press, high intensity and just go out and get after it.”

In the second half, Creighton came out with a lot of energy and had a couple of corner kicks at 47:55 and 55:54, unable to punch one in. Stanford also had a corner kick at 57:09 that yielded no cigar. It remained a 2-1 match.

That eventually changed as freshman Duncan Jarvie found the top center of the goal off his right foot courtesy of an assist from Noah Adnan. It was Jarvie’s first career goal in a Cardinal uniform and an important one at that, giving the Cardinal a 3-1 lead.

“It feels amazing,” Jarvie said of scoring his first career goal. “I mean, first touch I think. No better way to start my college career…Just the long throw, ball bounced a couple times in the box and just I was in the right place at the right time. So, just did. Stuck a foot out and yeah. Went in the net.”

From there, Stanford would go on to win 3-1. Creighton had a couple of more good scoring chances with corner kicks at 74:49 and 85:03, so they did a nice job of applying the pressure. It’s just that the Cardinal defense was too good and while not perfect, Jack Morris remained steady in the net.

“it’s always tough for keepers to step in and establish themselves,” Gunn said of Morris. “And I don’t think it was a perfect performance, but it was a really good solid performance by him where he’ll have got his feet wet now, he’ll gained a bit of confidence from that moving forward. I just expect him to grow and grow and grow.”

For Stanford, this is a big-time win. They came into this match ranked #7 in the nation while Creighton came in at #8. To win this match at all is big, let alone to win by two goals. The Cardinal came out with the right energy, pounced on the Blue Jays early, and after things tightening up before halftime, they were able to re-establish momentum thanks to Jarvie finding the net in the second half.

“Goals always change the complexion of everything,” Gunn said of Jarvie’s goal. “You know, in the first half, we were 2-0 up and looked completely comfortable and suddenly the game goes to 2-1 and you just see that they suddenly had their tails up and they looked more dangerous from that goal.

“And so, goals can really change behaviors in a game and so, to get that third goal, I thought it really put us in the driver’s seat where it was still a long way to go and a lot of work to do, but we really put ourselves in a position where we were going to be hard to catch. Because why they still had a couple of looks at goal, we were still looking at still getting another goal as well.

“And in fairness, when you look at the way the game went, we looked more likely pretty much throughout the game to score the next goal. Apart from maybe a five minute spell at the end of the first half and then the beginning of the second half I thought they looked really composed at that time.”

“Yeah, I think it was big,” Jarvie added. “I mean, I think after that, it got them on the back foot and we just kept going at them. Kept attacking and we kept getting more chances. So, I think it was big.”

Touching more on Jarvie, he chose a really nice match to score his first career goal. Hailing from the state of Utah, Jarvie brings pro experience having played with Real Monarchs SLC of MLS Next. He did not look like an underclassman in this match, playing with a lot of poise and confidence.

“I think it helped me a lot,” Jarvie said of playing with MLS Next. “I mean, obviously the guys in that league are like, they’re all older, obviously. A lot of them are ex-college players. So, I mean, playing at that level with the intensity and the ages of all the players, I mean, it definitely helped me prepare. For the physicality, especially.”

Up next for Stanford is a home match on Sunday against #17 Georgetown. That will begin at 1:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks.

“Look, we’re playing two really tough teams this weekend,” Gunn said. “And so the weekend’s job is half done. I think when we played them in the past, they’ve always been capable of causing us trouble. Although we played them in the most ridiculous heat we’ve ever played in when we were at Georgetown, and then we played them where you basically needed a canoe to play and so we’ll be excited to get to play them on the West Coast and get to play them at home and really take the game to them and I think we can put ourselves in a position to really cause some trouble.”

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