After falling from the national rankings with four straight one-goal losses to open the season, the Stanford men’s soccer team (2-4) finally got the monkey off its back with a hard-fought road victory Friday night over San Francisco (1-1-3). It returned to the Farm on Sunday night with renewed confidence and emerged from the weekend as co-champions of the Bay Area Soccer Classic after a 4-1 triumph over Santa Clara (2-4) at Laird Q. Cagan stadium.

“Success breeds confidence,” said head coach Bret Simon after the win. “We are in a much better situation psychologically as a team.”

A thick fog accompanied by light rain for the game against USF turned the game into a slugfest<\p>–<\p>rough play from both sides resulted in 30 fouls and six yellow cards. Senior defender Bobby Warshaw said it was “the perfect kind of night to roll up your sleeves and really go at it.”

Eighty-five minutes of scoreless soccer saw Stanford outshot by the Dons, but still holding control over possession. In the 86th minute, a giveaway by USF put Stanford on the attack and a firmly-struck cross from junior Alexander Binnie found senior Dominique Yahyavi’s right foot. Yahyavi slotted the ball past the keeper in the fog and the defense locked down for Stanford’s first win of the year.

Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Jason Dodson was kept busy all night by the Dons’ relentless aerial attack.

“Every guy [on USF] was huge,” he said. “They must have had four or five guys who were at least 6’3” and their game plan was to get the ball wide and cross it into the box. The coaches told me before the game that I would have to be very proactive in order to be dominant in the air and I couldn’t afford to sit back on my line.”

Dodson finished the game with his first career win and shutout.

Stanford kept its momentum going on Sunday night, turning in another strong offensive performance. Three different attackers scored to propel the Card to its second victory of the weekend.

A crowd of over a thousand came to support Stanford and was quickly rewarded as Yahyavi opened the scoring early in the 12th minute with a nifty breakaway off of a lobbed through ball by sophomore Dersu Abolfathi. Warshaw tallied his second goal of the year soon after with a header from a Ryan Thomas set piece, and the Cardinal was off and running.

A spectacular Santa Clara free kick found its way past Dodson before halftime, and it looked like the match was going to be close.

However, Stanford began to widen the gap after the break. Abolfathi opened his season’s scoring account after winning the ball from a defender deep in the attacking half. Yahyavi tacked on his third goal of the weekend in the 83rd minute as Stanford matched its highest offensive output in two years.

According to Warshaw, the team never panicked after suffering heartbreaking losses early, which was important for the team’s psyche.

“We always knew we were there, but we needed something to go right, something to fall into place,” he said. “Early in the season we were trying to find our personality as a team. It’s one thing to think about what kind of team we wanted to be, but it’s still another to find what kind of team will win you games.”

Simon is confident that the team is getting closer to where it needs to be in order to start winning consistently.

“We have good players, but that doesn’t mean we can just play the way we want to and expect to win,” he said. “We’re good, but we’re not that good.

“We have to revamp our identity so that we win the ball and defend to attack,” he added. “Our defending has been terrific recently and that has led to a lot of great opportunities, but our mentality still has to be that we are going to shut down opponents. That will lead to our scoring chances.”

The Cardinal will have its first chance to build on its recent success when St. Mary’s visits on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium.