On Thursday, Stanford men’s soccer won their regular season opener at home against San Jose State by a final score of 2-1. Stanford midfielder Will Reilly scored for the Cardinal while the other goal for the Cardinal came via an own goal. San Jose State forward Diogo Baptista scored for the Spartans.
Rowan Schnebly was the winning goalkeeper for the Cardinal with one save and one goal allowed in 90 minutes while Edgar Guerra was the losing goalkeeper for the Spartans with six saves and one goal allowed in 90 minutes. The own goal was not counted against Guerra on the stat sheet. This was also the 150th career win at Stanford for head coach Jeremy Gunn. Stanford improves to 1-0-0 while San Jose State falls to 0-1-0.
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. San Jose State-Thursday, August 22nd
“I’ve been here a little while now, haven’t I?” Gunn said with a smile about 150 wins at Stanford. “I think I’ve still got about another five thousand seven hundred and two to catch Tara’s record. That’s exciting with that but as far as the season, all that matters is how we played tonight and I thought we were fantastic tonight. I think everything went the right way. We really put them under incredible pressure. We were incessant, we were dominant, we were around the ball all the time, and I just loved the way we played tonight.
“But, there’s always a little but in these things. Soccer is a funny sport. I think if it was a boxing match, we’d be nine rounds to zero and yet they score a great goal and so suddenly, it’s a really exhilarating game at the end but yet I’m happy that we saw it out, we can learn lessons that regardless of how well we’re playing. We always have to make sure we shut down the opponent.
“I think they had one shot before that and then it’s a great strike and yet we’d had many many looks on goal that were in much better goal scoring positions. We could have three to the good, four to the good, and we would have been coasting, but we were two-nil up and you’re always still capable of being in a game at that point and so credit to San Jose. They kept going, they kept working, and a great goal by them to put them back into the game. But, as much as our players will be upset at themselves not finishing the game out perfectly, I’m still very very excited with the performance and very very excited with individual performances and overall team.”
Stanford scored quickly in this match at the 12:58 mark as Will Reilly was fouled, setting up a penalty kick. Reilly would not make the penalty kick as Guerra got the save. However, the ball wasn’t picked up by Guerra, it was blocked, giving Reilly a second opportunity of which he capitalized. Reilly was able to find the bottom center of the goal off his right foot, making it a 1-0 lead for the Cardinal.
“I mean, he hit a fantastic penalty,” Gunn said of Reilly’s goal. “And it’s a great save. Good for him that he finished the rebound and so he’ll probably be trying to claim an assist and a goal, right? But no, I thought it was a well struck penalty and a tremendous goalkeeper save and it was definitely a penalty so I don’t think there’s any arguments with that and at the time we really deserved the lead at that point. I thought we were playing really well and so there’s always areas to improve. There’s always areas to get a little bit better. Tonight would have been just that extra goal, really.”
“Yeah, I mean, good save from the keeper,” Reilly recalled. “Just gotta stay focused. Next play. Rebound. Put it in the back of the net. So, a goal’s a goal…It’s great. Great feeling. Especially to start the season. First game. First goal. Hopefully can carry that into the next few games.”
Stanford would not score the rest of the half, but they would do a nice job of applying pressure on San Jose State as they had four corner kicks and 11 shots. San Jose State in contrast had zero shots and zero corner kicks. They just weren’t able to get anything going offensively.
“Restart the game,” Reilly said of what Gunn’s message was at halftime. “Same message. Almost every halftime. Games don’t just continue as they do in the second half. It’s the start of a new game. The other team is going to come out with a whole different game plan, maybe different mentality, so you gotta come out and start it again.”
In the second half, Stanford once again was able to score early. At the 54:41 mark, Stanford was able to get into San Jose State territory and put enough pressure on the Spartans that they forced an own goal. It looked like Zach Bohane might have tipped the ball into the net, but the official ruling was an own goal. It was now a 2-0 lead for the Cardinal.
“The second goal, it was a really good delivery and their first defender managed to get his head to it, but it was just too high for him to head it well,” Gunn recalled of the second goal. “And so he tipped the ball on. I mean, it was goalward bound and so if he hadn’t have headed it with the traffic that would have got across it, it would have been going in the far corner. Keeper might have saved it. Obviously the deflection made it too difficult for the keeper. So, it’s a good delivery that’s in play and so well executed again.”
For the next little while, it looked like Stanford was going to cruise to a comfortable 2-0 victory, but then at the 79:46 mark Diogo Baptista fired an incredible shot off his left foot into the bottom left of the goal thanks to an assist from Angel Iniguez. It was suddenly a 2-1 lead for Stanford and a little over 10 minutes left.
“You have to push a team outwards,” Gunn said of the goal by the Spartans. “And we let somebody cut in onto his strong foot and strike a great ball and so it was a great attacking play, but we have to send him outwards.”
From there, Stanford would hang on to win 2-1, but man it was an intense finish. San Jose State had a corner kick at 82:54 while Jordi Tortell Daly fired a shot at 84:48. Stanford didn’t get too conservative during this time as Bohane actually fired a shot at 86:37 only for it to be saved by Guerra. The Spartans made a bit of a run and had their chances, but to the Cardinal’s credit, they bended but didn’t break.
“You can always try to shut up shop, but we want to be assertive and we want to keep scoring goals,” Gunn said of managing the final ten minutes of the match. “And so, I think that the best way of putting a game to bed is by scoring goals and that’s what we were looking to do and we couldn’t quite get that one that iced the game so that they’re always in it and that’s a soccer game. But, like I said though, we’d played so well and put ourselves in such a good position that I’ve got no complaints with the performance whatsoever.”
“Team defending for sure,” Reilly said of what got them across the finish line. “It’s front to back. Starts with the strikers. Back line being aggressive, center backs stepping in winning balls, and then forwards stepping into their defenders. Wingers getting into the outside backs and everyone following in picking the ball off and going in goal. So, it was a team effort defensively.”
While Stanford would have preferred the shut out, this was still a solid win in a rivalry match. San Jose State played with great aggression and passion as they always do. To walk out with a win should feel good for Stanford.
“Simon Tobin, the San Jose coach, he was my coach, recruited me over here,” Gunn said. “I played for him. I coached for him as an assistant. He’s in his retirement year and so we’ve had amazing battles through the years and so there’s so many coaches in the game that owe so much to him. So many players and a big congratulations to him for such an amazing coaching career and hopefully his team can really do him proud this year.”
“Yeah, definitely a rivalry of sorts,” Reilly said of facing the Spartans. “And it’s great. They have driving fans, we’ve got our own fans here, so it’s a really lively atmosphere. It’s a lot of fun playing...We can take a lot of positives from this and also a lot of things to work on. We didn’t get that shut out, so keep working on defending and then like we talked about being more clinical in front of goal and we’ll back here tomorrow morning preparing for Sunday.”
Up next for Stanford is a home match against Denver on Sunday at 4:00 PM PT on ACCNX. That will be the second of four straight home matches to begin the regular season.
“It’ll be another good game,” Gunn said of Denver. “Coach Franks has got an amazing program and an amazing team and we always have very very tough games against them. So, it never gets any easier. It’ll always be an incredible test ahead and so right now we’ll be congratulating ourselves on a quality performance, regrouping, and then once we’ve regrouped it’s all eyes on the game Sunday and let’s hope we can have a big excited crowd to cheer us on.”
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