The Marshall Thundering Herd men’s soccer team defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks in its home Conference USA opener Saturday afternoon with a final score of 2-0 at Hoops Family Field.

Marshall improved to 4-0-1 (1-0-0 C-USA) and South Carolina fell to 3-2-0 (0-1-0 C-USA).

“It was great,” Head Coach Chris Grassie said. “They were a tough team to breakdown. We kind of struggled in the first half. Credit to South Carolina, they did a great job. They’re a tough group.”

Throughout the entire first half, the Herd and Gamecocks battled back and forth, resulting in a 0-0 score. Senior midfielder Jonas Westmeyer, junior defender/midfielder Jamil Roberts and sophomore defender Jan-Erik Leinhos all had one shot each on goal totaling three for the first half, but they were not made.

During that period, it was not until the 42nd minute that South Carolina’s freshman midfielder Zach Kirkwood was issued a red card when he had a confrontation with Marshall’s freshman forward Max Schneider.

“Obviously the red card changed (the game) a little bit,” Grassie said. “I think we still created more chances than they were. It was just kind of a back-and-forth game.”

The Herd had seven total shots during the first half while the Gamecocks had three.

In the second half, the Herd came out strong and scored at the 48th minute by redshirt freshman forward Milo Yosef unassisted, making that his second goal of the season. The Gamecocks would then attempt one shot but were not successful.

Marshall answered again and score at the 54th minute by junior midfielder Pedro Dolabella with a double assist from Schneider and sophomore midfielder Vinicius Fernandes.

That goal marked Dolabella’s third goal of the season.

South Carolina’s sophomore forward Andrew Halloran had two shots, and sophomore midfielder/forward Seth Weibusch and Kirkwood had one shot each.

For the goal keepers, Marshall’s redshirt senior Paulo Pita did not have any goal attempts or any saves. South Carolina’s junior goalkeeper Buenyamin Yusufoglu had two goal attempts and six saves during the match.

The Herd combined for 22 shots while Carolina had four throughout the entire game.

Next up for the Herd, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will visit Huntington, W.Va. in a matchup at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17.

“(UTRGV is a) very good team. They won 14 games last year,” Grassie said. “We’re going to go on and win that game.”

Taylor Huddleston can be contacted at [email protected].