The Washington men’s soccer team started the weekend out with an at-home battle in rainy conditions Friday night against Stanford. Even though the Huskies are rolling with some momentum now after defeating Stanford 1-0 and tying Cal 2-2, they struggled for possession of the ball through much of the two matches.

“Stanford had a very good possession-based team and they put us under pressure,” said Washington coach Dean Wurzberger. “They controlled the ball better than we did under the rainy conditions.”

Stanford and Washington were held scoreless by the halftime mark, but Washington had five shots to the Cardinal’s one.

The Huskies’ offensive efforts paid off when freshman Casey McCool fired a shot to the upper right hand corner of the goal from 12 yards away, marking his first career goal at Washington.

“I was just in the right spot at the right time,” McCool said.

With less than 15 minutes left in the game, Washington still had the task of preserving the lead.

Sophomore goalkeeper Stephen Fung led the defense with two saves, preventing what could have been a major turnaround for the Cardinal.

“Our defense was brilliant while our attack tried to cope with the conditions and tried to get it going under difficult conditions,” said Wurzberger. “They stepped up and made sure that we shut [Stanford] out, which was not an easy task.”

On Sunday afternoon, under drier weather and against an arguably more difficult team, the Huskies took on the two-time Pac-10 defending champs, the California Golden Bears.

Washington was chasing the game for much of the first half. Cal was able to score just seven minutes in with a shot from a long cross that made it past Fung.

Still in the first half, at 36 minutes into the game, Washington was able to find the equalizer when senior Raphael Cox received an assist and header from sophomores Jamie Finch and Matt Van Houten to fire a 10-yard shot into the net.

The second half was played out in much the same way with Cal scoring first, but the Huskies found a way to put themselves on the board again when junior Casey Cunningham scored on an assist from Raphael Cox.

The game went into double overtime as the score remained 2-2 at the end of regulation, but neither side was able to capitalize on their offensive efforts and the match ended in a tie.

This was the last of Washington’s five-game homestand. The Huskies will head to Corvallis to play Oregon State in their only match next weekend.

Reach reporter Sheena Nguyen at sports@dailyuw.com.