OT: Marshall University with one of the greatest runs in soccer history
Thanks for sharing. I always love it when a smaller school wins it all. Never would've guessed there was elite soccer being played in Huntington WV of all places
No problem. Im from the area and I had heard through the last few months they were pretty solid and had a really good goalie, but most were still surprised by this historic run.
I don't believe I knew IU was such a NCAA soccer powerhouse? I learned something today.
I work at Marshall but I’m not originally from the area. The morning water cooler talk amongst people who essentially have only heard about a game called soccer until now has been pretty hilarious. At the same time it’s been a very cool thing to happen for this school/community after a tough year. WE ARE!
That makes five of the last seven national championship games that have gone to overtime and consecutive seasons with national champions from outside the "Power Five" conferences. Georgetown won the 2019 championship and Marshall's win is considered the 2020 championship because of the postponement of the 2020 season due to COVID.
I still remember when the St. Louis University Billikens were the dominant men’s college soccer team from the late fifties to the mid-seventies with ten national championships from 1959-1973. LINK
Are you the Pepperidge Farm guy?
My father and brother both went to SLU, so I caught my fair share of Billikens matches growing up. Really thought they'd go through a resurgence in the 90s.
Thanks to my high school coach, some of us who played high school soccer in the northeast during the 1960s were aware of the success of St. Louis University soccer program and the youth soccer programs in St. Louis. Several members of the United States team that upset England in the 1950 World Cup were from St. Louis. LINK (Yes, I'm old.)
Pretty amazing.
The Thundering Randy Mosses......
They are Marshall!
The head coach at Marshall was an assistant at Michigan from 2007-2010. If you remember, 2010 was the best Michigan soccer team since they moved to varsity status, losing in the semifianals of the college cup. Cool to see him go on to do such great things!
He also has an interesting strategy of recruiting 60-70% of his players internationally, especially from Brazil. I believe he has 7 or 8 Brazillians on his roster. I'm curious whether other college coaches lean in further with recruiting internationally.
A very interesting strategy indeed. They mentioned on the broadcast they have a single starter from the United States. Though they weren’t exactly Hickory High in Hoosiers, they were the #10 team in the country and in a non-COVID tourney would have been a seeded team. They still navigated a murderers row to win. Also neat seeing the shootout in the women’s championship, another smaller school taking a trophy (Santa Clara over FSU).
Santa Clara is typically a top 10 women's soccer school. Alumnae include Brandi Chastain, Aly Wagner & Julie Ertz.
Fair point, to be sure. It looked like most of em were in attendance to watch them get their second championship. Still a nice change of pace from UNC winning (though I suppose FSU is also not UNC). Fun side note, I’ve played some pickup with a couple of players from the Chastain/Hamm national teams back in the day. Though they were from UCLA and Stanford if I remember correctly.
That is pretty awesome - I know there are many soccer fans that despise golden goal, but this ending reminds of a playoff hockey winner: bouncing ball/puck off a rebound and full-team celebration as soon as the ball hits the back of the net. Very exciting, and appropriate for such a run!
Also, kudos to the guy calling the game for matching the moment. I often have a hard time watching the "down-ballot" ESPN crews that often call non-revenue sports because they call it with the excitement of watching paint dry. At least in this clip, the broadcaster seemed to add to the intensity/excitement of the play.
I'm not sure what the argument would be for hating golden goal other than tradition, because a golden goal winner is 100x more exciting than the ref arbitrarily deciding the game is over somewhere around when the stoppage time expires
I believe the argument is that golden goal discourages attacking play and encourages teams to sit back and wait for PKs. If you send extra bodies forward on an attack, you're exposed if there's a loss of possession and counterattack. If the counterattack scores, there's no opportunity to re-tie the game, therefore the "safe" play is to play conservatively.
I grew up playing hockey and absolutely love watching overtime playoff hockey, so I'm personally a fan of golden goal, but I could also understand the argument that it results in 30 minutes of non-activity so teams can get to a shootout.
Wait, sorry for being dense, but if this is the National Championship, how is there another game with a #1 seed going on at the same time? 3rd place game?
The women’s championship was held on the same field immediately prior to the men’s game (Santa Clara upset #1 FSU in PKs).
Great win for Marshall! But who knew that Niedermeyer calls NCAA soccer games?
That's a crazy run, and congrats to the Thundering Herd. I assume they are a defense-first outfit considering they scored more than 2 goals exactly once this year (10-1 against some random Virginia school).
That was a fun watch last night.
I did find it a bit odd/funny to see a bunch of drunk west virginians in the crowd rooting for a bunch of South Americans/Africans/Euros winning a national title for them in a sport where most probably don't really understand the rules. Or at least they didn't until Coach Grassie turned it around in 2019.
If I were coaching a university basketball team in Uruguay I would probably mainly recruit 20 year old American G-league dropouts. Seems to be a win/win for Marshall soccer and the international players that get to showcase their talents and receive an education.
Congrats the the Thundering Heard! I'm pretty sure this is the only Div-1 championship for the entire state of WV outside of the WVU rifle team which has a bunch. Interesting fact WVU football has the most wins of any team without a national championship. Anyways, I'm glad for the folks in Huntington it's always fun to see a small school win it all especially with a dramatic finish.
Careful making fun of the rifle team, their watching you!
They won the title and a hour west of them in portsmouth ohio Shawnee State University won the NAIA basketball title for the 1st time last month.
WVU has 19 National Rifle Championships ..... and 1 BOXING (!?!?!) National Championship back in 1938.
I never knew Boxing was a NCAA sponsored Championship, but it was once (1924-1960).
Not to be too pedantic, but Marshall technically has 2 Football National Championships as a D-1 school (D-1AA level, 1992 & 1996).
And that is it for National Championships by D-1 schools from West Virginia!
As D12 would say, “F*ck Marshall.”
kidding.
cool. Congrats Marshall.