The men’s soccer team closed out its home season in style on Sunday, celebrating Senior Day with a decisive 3-0 victory over Oregon State. The triumph helped ease some of the pain of Friday night’s heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Washington in the rain, a defeat that likely ended Stanford’s postseason hopes.

The weekend results pushed the Cardinal’s record to 8-9-0 on the year and 4-5-0 in the Pac-10, with its final regular season game against rival California on Nov. 11.

Oregon State (6-8-0, 1-6-0 Pac-10) offered little resistance during Sunday’s game in front of a small crowd at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium. Stanford came out playing some of its most relaxed and fluid soccer of the season, which redshirt junior Garrett Gunther attributed to the new starting lineup.

“It was really easy for us, because we’ve played together for so long,” Gunther said. “We are really comfortable with each other, and we know each other’s tendencies and weaknesses, so that just makes everything simpler.”

Head coach Bret Simon started all six players from the class of 2011, as well as redshirt senior Thiago Sa Freire, and remarkably, each was more or less in his natural position.

The Cardinal wasted little time taking the lead, as the team came out firing and broke through in the fifth minute. Senior defender Ryan Thomas’s corner kick fell to senior defender Shaun Culver in the middle of the box, and Culver left the ball off for senior forward Dominique Yayhavi. Yayhavi, Stanford’s leading scorer, finished the play and tallied his sixth goal of the season.

It was only 10 minutes later that the Cardinal added to its lead with a surprising blast from Thomas. Gunther played a short ball off another corner kick that found Thomas in a little space on the right side, and the defender hit a sharply driven ball through a crowd in front of the goal. Goalie Steve Spangler could not get to it, and a sliding attempt by an Oregon State defender was too late as Thomas scored his second career goal.

Sophomore Dersu Abolfathi capped the afternoon’s scoring late in the first half, as he found himself wide open in front of the goal only to whiff on the shot, before gathering himself and slotting his second attempt past the keeper.

Stanford maintained possession for most of the first half, dominating Oregon State in almost every aspect of the game. Even though the Beavers came out with a bit more energy in the second half, the Cardinal was still the stronger side. Redshirt freshman goalie Jason Dodson made a few impressive saves before being replaced by fellow redshirt freshman Galen Perkins in the 75th minute. Perkins was able to hold down the Beaver attack, preserving the shutout for Stanford.

Dodson could not, however, keep a clean sheet Friday night against Washington (9-5-1, 3-4-0) in what would be the Cardinal’s third straight 1-0 loss and its seventh loss by one goal.

The Cardinal came out strong against a physical Washington team that had taken the first matchup of the season, 2-0 at home.

Stanford caught a huge break in the 10th minute when Washington’s Taylor Mueller was given a red card and ejected from the match, leaving the Huskies to play 80 minutes with 10 men.

Stanford sent attackers forward all night long in the rain and forced Washington into a defensive shell for most of the night. The Cardinal outshot the Huskies 12-3 in the second half, and senior defenders Cameron Lamming and Bobby Warshaw combined for nine shots. But Husky goalkeeper Richey Spencer made several key saves to keep Washington alive, and Stanford began to press a little too hard as time wound down.

In the 84th minute, the Cardinal was caught with too many men in front of the ball, and Washington made it count. Two Husky attackers combined to lead the break, and a perfectly played through-ball left Dodson helpless as senior Matt Van Houten scored his fifth goal of the season, three of which have come against the Cardinal.

“The biggest thing we took away from the game was that we have to execute on our chances,” Gunther said. “It’s kind of the story of our season. We never have played a game this year where we thought we played particularly poorly, but we lost a lot of games when we didn’t finish.”

After the loss, Simon said there wasn’t much he could tell the team.

“There’s not a whole lot you can say after a game like that. I thanked them for working hard and said we just weren’t good enough that night,” he said.

“We had a lot of chances, and we didn’t finish them, and I thought our movement with the ball wasn’t that crisp. If you leave the game hanging like that, it can sometimes be snatched away.”

The loss likely ensured that Stanford will miss the postseason for the eighth time in nine years. Even with a win in its final game, the Card would only reach a .500 record, which would probably not be enough to secure an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament field of 48 teams.

However, a game against rival Cal still remains after the upcoming bye weekend. The Cardinal will look to play the role of spoiler against the Pac-10 leader and send the senior class off with a win on Nov. 11 in Berkeley.