The No. 6 Marshall Men’s Soccer won the battle against the University of Central Florida Knights 2-0, making their season record 8-1-2 and 3-0-1 in conference play. The game took place on Sunday, Oct. 13, at the UCF Soccer Complex.

This away game makes Marshall’s away record 2-1, finally making their away record above .500 for the first time this season.

“I thought the lads executed our game plan in the first half almost to perfection. The first half went just as we had planned in our in-possession phase,” head coach Chris Grassie said in his post-game interview. “Definitely some work for us to do getting into attacking transition. The second half, we really showed our fight and squad depth.”

“I thought it was a disappointing result because the result doesn’t really reflect how we played,” UCF head coach Scott Calabrese said in his post-game interview. “We were able to execute a game plan at a high level; I think we forced Marshall to play a bit more direct than they normally would.” 

The game was originally scheduled on Friday, Oct. 11, but due to Hurricane Milton, the game was postponed to Sunday. 

The rescheduled game started at 5 p.m., and the Herd’s offense quickly jumped out to an early lead with Ryan Holmes and Loïc Sany Kong assisting Lineker Rodrigues dos Santos, who fired a shot past the goalkeeper for an early Marshall lead just two minutes into the contest.

This was Rodrigues dos Santos’ fifth goal of the season, maintaining his spot as the team’s lead scorer. This also makes Marshall tied in 34th place with team goals on the season. 

The UCF Knights did not want to be left out of the offensive party with a shot on goal from Emmanual Bam in the 10th minute, but Marshall’s Aleksa Janjic was able to make the save, leaving the Knights scoreless.

In the 24th minute, Tarik Pannholzer and Aymane Sordo were sprinting down the pitch for another offensive attack. Pannholzer tried to pass the ball to Sordo, but the ball deflected off UCF’s Alex Smith for an own goal, extending the Herd’s lead 2-0.

This game was goalkeeper Janjic’s third shutout of the season.

Although Marshall’s offense came out hot, the Knights defensewas able to cool off the Herd’s offense in the second half of the match, with only three shot attempts from the Herd.

The temperature for the game started in the high 80s with the humidity in the low 60%. However, as the sun went down and temperatures started to cool off, the humidity level rose to around 90%.

“It was hot, humid conditions after a late day of travel, but I’m very proud of how we continued to battle,” Grassie said. “We could’ve kept the ball a little better, but we showed a lot of heart again this week.”

The Thundering Herd faces the Coastal Carolina University Chanticleers Friday, Oct. 18, at the CCU Soccer Complex in Conway, South Carolina. The game is scheduled to start at 8 p.m.

Nate Harrah can be contacted at [email protected].