Cal Poly Takes Over #1 in WCLL

Cal Poly in Driver’s Seat in WCLL

In a game that would dictate the leadership in the regular season WCLL, the Cal Poly Mustangs (#3 nationally ranked) traveled to Stanford (#11 nationally ranked) for the answer. In the end it would be Cal Poly that would take the lead with a decisive 14-5 victory over Stanford.

In a game that saw the balanced offense of coach Bobby Dabrieo’s Mustangs with 11 different players recording points it was the defense that again was bright on a rainy day. Led by All American candidates; #8 Goalie Sean Pihl (10 saves) and #11 close defender Gideon Baum; the Cal Poly defense held the Stanford offense in check all day. The Cal Poly Mustang defense is allowing less than 6 goals per game this season. As part of this complete team performance, #1 Austin Lord was dominant at the Face Off X going 12-2 and keeping the ball in the hands of the offense.

Offensively the Mustangs were led by #2 John Corbolotti (2G,3A); #22 Andrew Laron (2G,1A); #3 AJ Guralas (3G); #5 Ben Berkow (1G,1A); #14 Patrick Schneider (1G,1A);#1 Austin Lord (1G); #28 Zach Levitan (1G); #29 Tucker Reed (1G); #27 Evan Hunter (1G), #7 Joe Dresser (1A) and #15 Andrew Horton (2A). Adding to the offense was a goal by LSM #9 Alex Erler in transition to help seal the Cal Poly victory.

Coach Dabrieo had this to say on the win. “Proud of the way we played today. We’ve been preaching patience and focus and it was nice to see that for four quarters. I think we wore down their stud midfielders by making them play defense for long periods of time and it didn’t allow them to get into a flow offensively. Once again, Lord was great at the faceoff X, Pihl made some critical saves and Corbs did a great job leading the offense but this was a team effort that we can hopefully build off of going forward.”

The victory moves Cal Poly to 11-1 on the season and 6-0 in the WCLL and in sole possession of first place in league.

The Mustangs roll up their regular season with the final league game with University Nevada/Reno at Cal Poly on Saturday April 23 @ 3PM.