On Monday, No. 7 Stanford men’s soccer had a 1-1 draw against Pacific. Pacific forward Zion Vaughn scored for the Tigers while Stanford midfielder Dylan Groeneveld scored for the Cardinal. Stanford is now 8-2-4 overall while Pacific is now 2-6-4 overall.

BOX SCORE: Pacific at Stanford-Monday, October 21st

“It’s an incredible night of frustration,” Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said after the match. “I thought we played well, we created so many chances, and we just have to bury them. It’s that simple. I don’t know how many good chances we had in the game. We had enough good chances to win three games tonight. They have no shots and they have one player going for a ball with four of our players and they score.

“And so we’ve been all over them and we go goal down again, which is very frustrating and then we did everything to create chances, everything to win three games, but we’ve got to put the ball in the back of the net. It’s that simple.”

In the first half, Pacific was the first team to get a corner kick at 9:03 though that didn’t lead to a goal. Stanford also then had corner kicks at 26:15 and 29:21, but neither of those led to goals. Despite having only two shots and two shots on the goal the entire match, Pacific was the first team to score as Zion Vaughn found the bottom left of the goal off an assist from Luca Baltzer at 38:32. Pacific would maintain that 1-0 lead into halftime.

In the second half, Stanford had corner kicks at 46:54, 48:26, and 54:57 without being able to find the back of the net. They had some great chances, but just weren’t able to score. Shortly after a red card against Pacific’s Ezekiel Padilla at 68:06, Stanford was finally able to even up the match as Dylan Groeneveld found the bottom right of the goal off an assist from Will Cleary. It was now tied up 1-1. Stanford would continue to attack Pacific all the way until the very end of the match, but they weren’t able to tack on a second goal for the win. In the end, it would be a 1-1 draw.

For Stanford, this is a very disappointing match. While it’s obviously much better to have a draw than a loss, the fact that they couldn’t get a second goal despite outshooting Pacific 30-2 is beyond frustrating. Stanford had 12 shots on goal and forced Pacific goalkeeper Joshua Moya to have 10 saves. When you bombard a team to that level, normally the dam breaks and you get multiple goals.

“We can all always improve, but we created opportunities,” Gunn said. “And so then it’s just about finishing those opportunities and that’s something that you know, like I say, I mean the amount of chances we had that looked like would be a goal were incredible, so I don’t think we can question it too much. We just have to go away and make sure we’re more clinical in the next game.”

One thing that has hurt Stanford a bit the last couple of matches is the absence of Zach Bohane. He’s one of the best goal scorers on the team and is extremely good at finding the back of the net when others are struggling to do so. Had he been a go, perhaps Stanford would have pulled this one out and also been able to even things up against San Francisco. That being said, Stanford doesn’t want to use that as an excuse. They had plenty of chances and have to be able to bury them.

“Zach’s a fantastic player, but it’s next man up,” Gunn said of Bohane’s absence. “And so, we’re missing him obviously, but we’ve got other very capable players and they need to fill the role and put the ball in the back of the net…Never really allowed to talk publicly about health, but he’s very close [to returning]. So we’ll see.”

Up next for Stanford is a home match against No. 11 North Carolina on Sunday. That will begin at 5:00 PM PT on ACCNX.

“I know a lot about them, they’ve got a great program, we’ve had a wonderful history of competing against them,” Gunn said of the Tarheels. “In the national final with Charlotte, in the semifinals with Stanford, Elite Eight, whichever, a great team, and it’ll be another fantastic game and so we’ll be looking forward to a really exciting match again and let’s score some goals.”

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