Cal Poly preps to play top-ranked Stanford Wednesday

Don’t fear the tree.

On Wednesday night, Cal Poly men’s soccer will take-on Stanford, the nation’s top-ranked team, at Alex G. Spanos Stadium. The exhibition match will be the first of two this week for the Mustangs. On Sunday evening, they’ll square off against Loyola Marymount before playing their first actual game at North Carolina the following week.

Cal Poly’s first two weekends or real games will be spent on the road. First, they’ll face ACC foes and top-10 teams North Carolina and Wake Forest before traveling to New Mexico to play the Lobos and Air Force the following weekend. The first home match that counts in their final record will be Sunday, September 11th against Fresno Pacific.

Kaba Alkebulan may have more opportunities to do damage front of goal this year. Photo by Owen Main

In their Green-Gold scrimmage on Saturday, key players George Grote and Trenton Matson were unavailable and Justin Dhillon rolled his ankle early in the first half. Though they lost four seniors to the USL and MLS after last year, this year’s Cal Poly team has added some depth in the offseason. Freshmen like Christian Enriquez, Sebastian Herran, Diego Alonso, Patch Johanssen, Kenneth Higgins, and Brayden Myus should all get opportunities to contribute.

Freshman midfielder Daniel Malki (Phoenix, AZ) is a Cal Poly legacy, following in his brother George’s footsteps.

Returning players like Matson, Ramiro Molina-Valerio, Joseph Bolous, Kaba Alkebulan, Adam Olsen, Bjorn Sandberg, Nick Carroll, Jack O’Connor, Jared Pressley, and Ruben Duran look to make improvement over last season to account for the loss in production and leadership from departures of Matt LaGrassa, Kip Colvey, Chase Minter, and Wade Hamilton.

Kody Wakasa, with a fresh white haircut and a familiar gritty attitude will lead the back line along with Matson. Justin Dhillon, who was a top-50 national recruit out of high school, has a final chance to play with his brother Sean — both are in their senior season. Tony Scimeca will compete for time in the middle of the back line and Brett Foreman, who was really effective two years ago before being injured last season.

The biggest question mark for this team might be who starts in goal. Eric Kam is a junior and has been in the program for two years already behind Hamilton. Simon Boehme, a Danish sophomore, has also waited his turn.

On the field, Boehme looks a little more Hamilton-esque, but Kam has been in the program for some time as well. I’ll give a slight edge to Boehme based only on the Green-Gold game, but either could be the guy in goal for the Mustangs this year.

Steve Sampson’s team will face North Carolina, UCLA, Wake Forest, and San Diego State. Cal Poly will have a tough schedule all year, but no game will be more fun than Saturday October 15th at Spanos Stadium against UCSB.

First thing’s first though.

Stanford is coming to town.

Photos from Cal Poly’s – Green-White scrimmage on Saturday

Find them all at photos.fansmanship.com