On Sunday, @flowerbaby and I didn't have any major plans. Last minute, we decided to get tickets to a college soccer game. One of the top teams in all of the USA was playing and they just happened to be less than an hour away from where we live. So we drove down to Huntington, WV to catch a glimpse of the Marshall University Men's Soccer team. This was only the season's second match; the only other time we went was over a month ago when Marshall played their biggest rivalry match against WVU and they won!
The Marshall Thundering Herd have been in the top 25 rankings every week since Oct. 15, 2019.
I didn't even look up anything about the team that Marshall was playing before I purchased tickets. Out of curiosity, during the drive down we looked up the record of Georgia Southern Eagles. We found out that they had only won one game this season so far and were basically the worst team that Marshall had on their schedule all year long. We knew that Marshall would stomp them, but at least this meant we would get to watch a lot of goals be scored and that we did.
The Eagles lead the all-time series versus Marshall 2-3-1. Georgia Southern won the last meeting 2-0 in 1996 in Greenville, South Carolina. It had been a while since these teams have played, but now that Marshall is in the Sun Belt Conference, it will be a regular thing.
The season is near the end, but there are still a couple of games left. This one we were at also happened to be Senior Night. This is when they celebrate the players that will be graduating and moving on after this season. Sadly, this includes Marshall's best player Milo Yosef. Hopefully, they can get one more National Championship before he and the other seniors depart.
It was thankfully a warm day for us here, despite it being freezing cold most of the past few weeks. A perfect day for some soccer. I paid for the tickets which were $5 extra in hopes of having some good seats. We got screwed on that though. There were people right on top of us and they had multiple little kids with them. Not only were the kids fidgeting the entire time, but we had basically no space and it was super uncomfortable. We ended up ditching section 101 behind the away team bench in favor of the empty student section on the other side of the field. Luckily for us, this meant we were right in front of the majority of the action the entire match. Marshall kept possession far more often and we were down at the scoring end for each half.
6 Marshall University picked up a 6-1 win over the Georgia Southern Eagles Sunday evening at Hoops Family Field. The Herd outshot the Eagles 24-4, including 10-1 in shots on goal.
Marshall was the first to score during the 14th minute. Freshman Matthew Bell fired a shot that was saved by Georgia Southern goalkeeper Dagoberto Romero. However, junior Morris Duggan was there to slot the rebound home for his first goal of the season and give the Herd a 1-0 lead. Like déjà vu, Bell fired another shot that was saved in the 21st minute, but this time Souza was there to put the ball in the back of the net to double Marshall's lead 2-0. The two sides entered halftime with Marshall up by two.
Just over six minutes into the second half, Milo Yosef had a shot ricochet off the left post. The ball landed at junior Taimu Okiyoshi's feet, who scored his second goal of the season and gave MU a 3-0 advantage. Six minutes later in the 58th minute, senior Gabriel Alves sent in a cross that an Eagle defender deflected into the back of the net for an own goal as the Herd led 4-0.
The goals kept coming for Marshall as Yosef put a cross through the 18-yard box, finding junior Adam Aoumaich. Aoumaich then beat the keeper with his second goal in as many games to extend the lead to 5-0 in the 64th minute.
Georgia Southern finally got on the board with a tally in the 67th minute by Manuel Prito off a free kick. It was actually a stellar shot into the top corner of the net and was a very well-deserved goal for their team.
However, Yosef answered with his eighth goal of the season in the 75th minute as Marshall won the contest 6-1. Yosef's eight goals this season are tied with Bell for the team lead.
Georgia Southern's team didn't have much confidence going in. They are nearly winless this season and they were playing one of the best teams in Marshall. You could tell they just weren't in a good place by how their head coach was anxiously pacing up and down the sidelines mumbling vulgarities to his players. He seemed very tired of getting trounced and all they wanted to do was not get blown out. Sadly for them, their defense was atrocious and Marshall made easy work of them. I have a feeling that the bus ride home to Georgia wasn't a fun one. Marshall on the other hand is well on their way to another championship.
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