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STANFORD, Calif. – Sixth-ranked Stanford scored three first half goals and another in the opening minutes of the second half for 4-1 victory over the No. 4 Washington men’s soccer team.
“We were forced into some uncharacteristic errors and good teams like Stanford will punish you for those mistakes,” UW coach Dean Wurzberger said. “Stanford certainly did today. They took an early lead, 2-0, and when we caught a goal back it gave us hope. All I can say is that they were too good for us on the day.”
The Pacific-10 Conference loss dropped the Huskies 10-2-0 overall and 2-2-0 in the league. The Cardinal improved to 13-1-0, 3-1-0.
The Cardinal’s three-goal margin of victory was the largest in the series between Stanford and Washington since 1989. Seven of the last eight meetings had been decided by a single goal.
Stanford’s first score came in the 22nd minute, when Todd Dunivant stole the ball and passed it inside to Derek Shanahan, who drove it into the net at 22:12. The Cardinal struck again 10 minutes later on an unassisted shot by Darren Fernandez at 32:07.
Washington answered just 11 seconds later when freshman Brett Wiesner scored after taking a cross from senior Billy Sleeth. It was Wiesner’s fourth goal of the season.
Stanford increased its lead just before the end of the first period when Johanes Maliza sent a pass across to Roger Levesque, who went around his defender and beat the keeper for the score at 42:44. The same two players reversed roles early in the second half. This time Levesque sent the ball to Maliza who beat his defender and fired the ball in the net at 50:26.
Stanford dominated the match statistically, firing 14 shots to the Huskies’ five. Chad Olsen started in goal for Washington and tallied one save but was relieved midway through the second half by Dan Waltman.
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