No. 11 Stanford men’s soccer (6-2-0) is off to a strong start this season. It began with three rapid wins over Creighton, Northeastern and SMU in the first week of September.

The Cardinal had their best start to the season since 2004, when the team also went 3-0-0. This impressive streak came to a halt on September 9 with a 2-0 loss to Tulsa. This was the first regular season, non-conference loss at home for Stanford since September 2013.

The Stanford offense has been potent this season, as the team ranks No. 5 in the nation in assists per game and No. 10 in points per game.

Perhaps this powerful team can attribute its early wins to a returning lineup of nine starters that includes two all-American seniors, Tomas Hilliard-Arce and Foster Langsdorf. These seniors are two of the 31 players on the 2017 MAC Hermann trophy watch list — making Stanford the only team in the country with multiple players on the list.

The Cardinal placed a league best four players on the all PAC-12 preseason team with seniors Corey Baird, Drew Skundrich, Hilliard-Arce and Langsdorf.

Hilliard-Arce was also voted to the Top Drawer Soccer Preseason Best XI, with Landsdorf being voted to the second team, Skundrich voted to the third team and Logan Panchot being voted to the freshmen team.

Panchot joins the Cardinal’s number one recruiting class according to Top Drawer Soccer, which includes Charlie Wehan, Arda Bulut, Jack O’Brien and Carson vom Steeg. These talented freshman are all considered to be four of the top 20 incoming freshman in the nation.

There is no question that the Stanford men’s team remains the top collegiate soccer program in the country over the past three years. The Cardinal has compiled a 52-9-11 record, as well as winning back to back national championships and three PAC-12 titles over the last three seasons.

The team bounced back from the Tulsa defeat by beating San Francisco 1-0 on September 15 with Skundrich scoring in the 11th minute to lift the Cardinal. Stanford then beat Yale 3-1 on September 17 with Panchot scoring the winning goal. It was difficult to tally a loss against St. Louis, however, as the Cardinal fell 2-0 on September 23. Although Stanford dominated the action in the latter half, they could not get a crucial goal.

Next up, Stanford travels south to take on San Diego State (4-4-0) on September 28. The Cardinal hasn’t lost to the Aztecs since 2011 and leads the all-time series 15-11-8 against them.

Contact Matthew Bernstein at mbernste ‘at’ stanford.edu.