Five minutes later, Logan Panchot lofted a ball into the box that was knocked away by Denver keeper Will Palmquist. It was batted around a bit until it fell to the feet of Zach Ryan in the middle of the penalty area. Ryan wound up and launched his no-doubter into the back of the net for his third score in as many games.

Stanford certainly did that as it kept its unblemished record intact through four games. The Cardinal struck first in the 23rd minute when freshman Ousseni Bouda was taken down in the box by the Pioneers' Bailey Heller. Heller was shown a yellow and Tanner Beason stepped up and buried the penalty, his third of the season.

"I'm more concerned with how the game went tonight," Gunn said. "Those milestones are things you'll look back on when you get older. We don't celebrate individual accolades that much in this program. It's all about the team and tonight I'm happy that we played some really exciting soccer."

The win was Stanford's fourth in a row to open the season and was the 100th at Stanford for coach Jeremy Gunn. A four-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year and the 2017 National Coach of the Year, his teams are 100-29-23 (.734) in his eight seasons at Stanford. He is the second to win at least 100 matches as coach of the Cardinal. Fred Priddle went 133-119-23 from 1954-75.

Stanford scored twice in the first half, its defense held firm and the No. 3 Cardinal men’s soccer team knocked off visiting Denver, 2-0, before a capacity crowd of 2,304 on Friday night.

"It's not just the defenders, it's an entire unit," Gunn added. "We've laid down that marker. We want to be electrifying on the ball when we're attacking and we want to be the hardest working team in the country to play against when we're defending."

The shutout was the Cardinal's third in four games to open the season and were it not for a deflected shot at Akron the team could easily have four clean sheets thus far.

Stanford moved to 46-6-10 (.823) at home since 2014 with the win and lowered its goals against average in Cagan Stadium over the last five seasons to 0.51.

"At the start, Denver had possession and kept it very well," Gunn said. "We weren't attacking as we'd like, but they also weren't hurting us. Once we got the ball moving, we looked really fluid and played some wonderful soccer. We really got going in the remainder of the first half, the goals obviously got us into a good position and that extra confidence helped us out the rest of the way."

Senior Bennett Williams and junior Tyler Abramson each netted four goals for the Cardinal (5-0), who raced to a 9-3 halftime advantage and were never challenged.

Welch brought Stanford even in the 57th minute, finding the cage following an assist from Emma Alderton and evening the score at 2-2.

Phoebe Crosthwaite's second goal of the season gave Stanford a 1-0 lead four minutes before halftime, with Jessica Welch credited with an assist on her entry pass.

The Cardinal owned advantages in shots (14-10) and penalty corners (5-3) but was unable to pull away despite a dominant first half.

Playing the third of its four-game, six-day road swing, Stanford (4-3) controlled play in the first half but New Hampshire (2-3) relied on opportunistic scoring in the second half to pull the upset.

The Cardinal will play Pro Recco, Italy's top professional team, at 10:30 a.m. in Avery. The teams will play again on Sunday at 11:30 a.m., and Stanford faces the Olympic Club at 4:30 p.m.

Stanford returns to action on Saturday when it hosts the Stanford Invitational. Also competing are UCLA, San Jose State, Pro Recco and the Olympic Club.

Stanford men win soccer match at home before sold out crowd

Weigle scores twice and the Cardinal men's water polo team wins home opener