Oct. 25, 2012

WATCH Stanford-UCSB Live

STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford Men's Soccer breaks from its Pac-12 schedule this weekend, traveling to the Southern California coast to visit No. 25 UC Santa Barbara Friday night at 7 p.m.

Friday night's match will be available to fans via a free live stream on Big West TV as well as on UCSB's GameDay Central.

Head coach Jeremy Gunn's charges are coming off of their final home weekend of the campaign, a stretch in which the Cardinal split its results with a 3-2 win over Oregon State Thursday and a 2-1 loss against Pac-12 leader Washington Sunday afternoon.

Adam Jahn's team-leading eighth goal of the season was the match-winner in Thursday night's come-from-behind victory over the Beavers. Trailing 2-1 late, JJ Koval and Jahn scored 44 seconds apart in the 86th minute to thrillingly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Three days later, the Cardinal took a 1-0 lead over the conference-leading Huskies and was fighting to a 1-1 standstill before being unfortunate to be reduced to 10 men when Ty Thompson was issued a straight red card on a challenge. Despite playing the final 47 minutes with 10 men, the Cardinal continued to control to pace and out-chance the Huskies, but in the 77th minute Washington capitalized on a counterattack to score the eventual match-winner.

Stanford (6-7-1) will face its fourth ranked opponent in the season in No. 25 UC Santa Barbara (9-3-3) Friday. The Cardinal has gone 1-2-0 in its three previous matched against ranked teams, the victory coming via a 2-0 decision at then-No. 11 UC Irvine on Sept. 7.

The Gauchos enter Friday's match trying to find a groove in what has turned out to be a rough month. UCSB has earned just six of a possible 15 points over its five matches in October, dropping to fourth in the Big West North Division at 3-3-1. Since opening the Big West campaign 2-0-1, the Gauchos have thrice been defeated and only managed a win and a draw in their next five contests. UCSB suffered a 2-1 home defeat to Cal Poly in its most recent action last Friday night.

Friday night's match, the only one of the weekend for Stanford, begins a regular season-ending four-match road stretch for the Cardinal. Next week Stanford resumes Pac-12 play with matches at No. 7 UCLA (Thursday, 7 p.m., Pac-12 Networks) and San Diego State (Saturday, 7 p.m.).