SAN DIEGO, Calif. – New player, same story for the No. 8 Stanford men’s soccer team. This time it was redshirt senior Austin Meyer’s game winner in the 98th minute that sent the Cardinal to a 1-0 victory over the Aztecs at SDSU Sports Deck on Sunday afternoon.
Meyer became the 12th different Stanford (10-2-3 overall, 3-1-3 Pac-12) player to tally a goal in 2014, a varied number of scorers which leads the Pac-12 and is the most for the Cardinal since 2009 (12). It was the second goal of Meyer’s career after his first came in a 2-1 win over San Jose State on Sept. 12, 2012.
With Jordan Morris in the final third, the sophomore looked to get a shot off, but instead dished off to Eric Verso. Verso guided it back to Meyer who smashed home a diagonal rocket from outside the box to win the game.
“Obviously when you’re creating chances and getting them from different positons it’s going to make it tougher for opponents to pinpoint where our goals are coming from,” Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said of his deep team. “It was a fantastic road victory. San Diego State had a good game plan trying to making things difficult for us, but we kept persevering and eventually broke the dead lock in overtime.”
Little bro @Austinmeyer17 just bagged a game winner in OT at SDSU for @StanfordMSoccer #boss #walkoff pic.twitter.com/INBhEJU4IY
— Brendan Meyer (@BrendanMeyer) November 2, 2014
The win was Stanford’s 10th of the season, matching last year’s win total, and the Cardinal’s third in Pac-12 play after drawing UCLA twice and Cal once in its last three league games. Stanford has not lost an overtime game since Nov. 1, 2012, a streak that is now at 13. The Cardinal is 6-0-7 in such contests over that span.
Sunday’s win was the Cardinal’s sixth shutout of 2014, as sophomore keeper Andrew Epstein lowered his goals against average to 0.83. After not mustering a shot on goal in the teams’ first meeting on The Farm (Oct. 9), the Aztecs (7-11-0, 1-8-0) were able to put a pair on frame in this one, but both were ably handled by Epstein.
“It’s always good to get three points,” Gunn added. “Our players stood strong defensively and showed tremendous grit and determination. They’re willing to fight through anything.”
Coupled with Thursday night’s 2-2 draw at No. 1 UCLA, Stanford wrapped up its final Pac-12 road swing with four points. The Cardinal will return to Cagan Stadium next Friday (5 p.m.) and Sunday (3 p.m.) for matches against Washington (11-3-1, 4-2-1) and Oregon State (9-6-1, 2-4-1), both of which will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks. The regular season concludes at Cal (10-3-1, 4-2-1) on Sunday, Nov. 16 at 1 p.m.
“It was great to get the result to conclude an excellent road trip,” Gunn said. “We played tremendous soccer and really showed an incredible mindset.”
