THE SCHEDULE: San José State returns to the pitch for two contests this week, traveling to No. 2 Stanford on Tuesday before kicking off WAC play at home against CSU Bakersfield on Saturday. Both matches are set to kickoff at 7:00 p.m.
FOLLOW ALONG: Tuesday's match will be televised nationally on the Pac-12 Networks with Troy Clardy on the call. Live stats will be available for both matches and you can follow every San José State men's soccer game live on Twitter, @SanJoseStateMS.
TICKETS: Individual game tickets to regular season matches are on sale now via Ticketmaster charge-by-phone at (800) 745-3000 or online at Ticketmaster.com. Youth tickets are available for $5, with adult tickets on sale for $8. Group ticket inquiries should be made to (408) 924-SJTX (7589).
T-SHIRTS: Saturday will be Spartan Squad Night at the Spartan Soccer Complex. Be sure to arrive early as the first 50 students will receive free t-shirts.
FIRST TOUCHES:
- Four different players (Eduardo Buenfil, Suliman Khorami, Danny Sanchez, Rodolfo Castro) have scored a goal this season.
- Khorami tops the team with two goals and four points on the year.
- Midfielder Max Allen leads the club with 14 shots and (six on goal) through six matches.
- Midfielder Carlos-Gomez Zavala has seen a team-high 529 minutes of action on the pitch in 2019.
- SJSU faced No. 1 Stanford on the road to open last season and played the Cardinal to a 0-0 draw.
- The Spartans' 1-0 lead in its September 9 match against Saint Mary's marked the first time the Gaels have trailed in a match since September 16, 2018 (0-1 at UC Riverside).
- Allen was named to the All-WAC Preseason Team last month.
- Allen and juniors Omar Lemus and Willy Miranda are also back for the Spartans after earning All-WAC honors a year ago.
- Lemus led the Spartans in both goals (six) and assists (four) as a sophomore in 2018. He enters the 2019 campaign with 18 career points.
WAC-Y STARTS:
- San José State holds a 2-1-3 record in conference openers since joining the WAC and has earned results in the last five.
- Last year's WAC lid-lifter came in Bakersfield and the Spartans emerged with a 2-1 victory. The club jumped out to an early advantage, striking in the ninth and 13th minutes on goals from Eduardo Buenfil and Omar Lemus.
SCOUTING STANFORD:
- San José State has played Stanford 67 times in program history, trailing the all-time series with a record of 27-32-8.
- The Spartans earned a draw against the Cardinal in Stanford last season, their first result in the series since playing Stanford to a 1-1 draw at Spartan Stadium in 2008. The program's last victory in the series came in 2-1 fashion in 2006.
- The Cardinal are 6-0 (1-0 Pac-12) on the season and could be ranked as high as No. 1 in the country when the new polls are released ahead of Tuesday night's match. The club last hit the pitch on Friday at rival California, topping the Golden Bears for a 2-1 win in the Big Clasico.
- The club finished the 2018 campaign with a 12-4-5 record and advanced all the way to the NCAA Quarterfinals.
CHECKING ON CSU BAKERSFIELD:
- San José State and CSU Bakersfield have met 18 times in program history, leading the all-time series with a record of 10-7-1.
- Spartan head coach Simon Tobin has coached in all 18 meetings, leading the Roadrunners in the first 12 matches before taking over at the helm in San José for the final six. All 18 of the meetings have been played over the course of the last 12 years.
- SJSU faced CSU Bakersfield three times in 2013 (Tobin's final year with CSUB), matching a program-high for meetings with an opponent in a single season (1972 vs. UCLA, 2013 vs. Seattle and UNLV).
- San José State has won two in a row against the Roadrunners and has earned results in four of the last five meetings, outscoring them 6-3 in that stretch. It has not lost to CSU Bakersfield in San José since 2013, dropping a 4-3 decision at Spartan Stadium.
- CSUB currently holds a record of 1-5, falling by a tally of 1-0 at Pacific in its last match.
TOBIN'S TEAM:
- 2019 marks the sixth season at the helm in San José for Tobin, who joined the Spartans after spending the previous 27 seasons as the head coach at CSU Bakersfield.
- Tobin is a native of London, England, graduating from Nonington College in 1983.
- His 338 career victories ranks No. 10 in all of Division I among active coaches.
- Postseason success has been a staple of Tobin's time in San José as the Spartans have made the Western Athletic Conference title match in both the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
- He has continued to turn out some of the top talent in the conference year in and year out, placing a total of 15 players on the All-Western Athletic Conference Team throughout his tenure.
THE STAFF:
- San José State's coaching staff features three men who each saw success in their collegiate playing days at universities throughout the state.
- Jonathan Lester is a Spartan alumnus and ranks No. 4 on the program's all time saves list with a dominant 225 in just three years.
- Jesus Sanchez played for Tobin at CSU Bakersfield, finishing his four seasons there with 16 goals and 27 assists while compiling a record of 40-22-15.
- Nic Ryan rounds out the staff as a volunteer assistant coach. He played collegiately at UC Santa Barbara, reaching the NCAA Tournament three times in four years with the Gauchos.
- Lester is in his third year on staff with the Spartans, while both Sanchez and Ryan came aboard prior to the start of the 2018 season.
FRESH FACES:
- San José State's 2019 roster features 12 newcomers, nine of which are freshmen.
- 10 of the 12 newcomers hail from California, bringing the team's total to 24 in-state products.
BETTER KNOW A SPARTAN:
- SJSU was one of five teams to receive a first-place vote in the WAC Preseason Poll. The defending WAC Championship runner-up finished sixth in the poll of the conference coaches.
- Tobin has taken the program to back-to-back WAC title match appearances. This year's conference tournament is scheduled for November 13-17 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- The San José State squad features a trio of European players in the form of freshman Kasper Poulsgaard, sophomore Finlay Wood and junior Max Allen. Poulsgaard hails from Denmark, while Wood and Allen come to San José from Wales and England, respectively.
- The Spartans will face five NCAA Tournament teams from a year ago in 2019, with both Saint Mary's (September 9) and Air Force (October 27) coming to the Spartan Soccer Complex.
- Senior Jeff Dukes has gotten the job done both on the field and in the classroom, earning Academic All-WAC recognition last season. It was the second such award for Dukes in his collegiate career.
- SJSU prepared for the regular season with a pair of serviceable exhibition matches. The club played a 110-minute friendly at California before returning home and defeating Holy Cross.
THIS YEAR'S SLATE:
- Three of San José State's seven non-conference matches will be hosted at the Spartan Soccer Complex.
- The Spartans seven non-conference opponents represent three different conferences (Big West, WCC, Pac-12).
SOCIAL MEDIA: The men's soccer program can be found on both Twitter (@SanJoseStateMS) and Instagram (@sanjosestatems). Be sure to follow for a behind the scenes look at the team.