For a span of maybe 20 minutes, flashbacks to 2013 and 2014 were in the air at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium — for the third straight year, the higher-seeded Cardinal found themselves down 1-0 early at home in their first match of the NCAA tournament.
But that’s where the parallels ended. This time around, No. 7 Stanford (15-2-2) took care of business on its home pitch with a stellar second half: The team controlled the ball and found its solid mid-season form behind a two-goal performance from freshman Amir Bashti to power past Santa Clara (11-8-1) in a 3-1 victory, advancing the Cardinal to the third round of the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years.
“Every team that we play against is going to be going for it,” said senior defender Brandon Vincent. “They come out, make it competitive and make it a fight, then we’ve got to match it and then some more. Once we earn the right to play by matching their intensity and their fight, then we can get the ball down, settle it and start playing like we did in the second half.”
After a hard-fought first half in which both back lines held firm and there were only five combined shots, Stanford dominated the second half, controlling the ball much more effectively and creating more opportunities with sound passing in the final third, outshooting Santa Clara 15-7 and connecting on three of those opportunities.
Although the Cardinal and Broncos had combined for only three yellow cards in the first match they had played against each other earlier this season (a 0-0 exhibition draw), Sunday’s game got chippy and physical early. The teams combined for a whopping five yellow cards and 19 fouls in the first half, and while things settled down in the second half (only one yellow card), the game was physical all the way through, with fouls not being called on both sides as well.
The Broncos jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on an early goal from senior Dylan Autran, which was more of a fluke than anything else — Autran’s shot was deflected and looked to be on a path away from the goal, but the ball had crazy spin on it and took a weird bounce directly into Stanford’s goal.
“They scored a goal that’s a bit unfortunate for us,” said head coach Jeremy Gunn. “Give Santa Clara credit, you’ve got to get into shooting position and if you get a deflection, then fair enough.”
Stanford came out a different team after the break, though, and after Foster Langsdorf was fouled 13 minutes into the second half, Vincent drilled a beautiful free kick at a crazy angle from the far right side of the box to net the equalizer and give Stanford new life.
“I was trying to put it in a difficult area for the keeper,” Vincent said. “If it goes in, it goes in, if it doesn’t, one of our guys gets a head on it and it goes in.”
“Goals change games,” Gunn said. “We get frustrated after they’ve scored, but because it came early enough in the second half, we never really got to that frustrated stage. If we’d gone another 10 minutes, it would have been a bit trickier for us.”
The Cardinal continued to dominate possession and pressure the Santa Clara back line over the next several minutes with consistent pressure from Jordan Morris breaks until the Cardinal finally pulled ahead with 15 minutes to go. A strong shot from senior midfielder Ty Thompson was saved by SCU keeper Kendall McIntosh before Bashti headed home the rebound over McIntosh’s hands to give Stanford a 2-1 lead.
“We had the momentum, we had the confidence, and we were playing,” Gunn said. “Our tails were really up at that point.”
Bashti added his second of the game with five minutes to go, when Santa Clara brought its men up and pressured Stanford with aggressive shots but allowed Morris and Bashti to break away after a miscommunication at midfield. Morris volleyed the ball to Bashti, who netted a right-footed curl shot to put the game on ice.
The goals were the third and fourth of Bashti’s Stanford career and doubled his season total.
“All I ask them to do is whether they play one minute or whether they play 90 minutes, they’ve got to work and be prepared,” Gunn said. “If they do that, good things will happen for them. Amir has added to our team so often so many times this year and he’ll continue to do that.”
Stanford will now move on to host No. 9 Ohio State at home in the third round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday at 5 p.m. at Cagan Stadium.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.