The Marshall University’s men’s soccer team (7-8-1, 2-5-1) defeated Old Dominion University (8-4-3, 3-3-2) 1-0 Saturday in its regular season finale.

The win earned the Herd the seventh seed in the Conference USA Championships, which begins Wednesday.

Marshall junior midfielder Trevor Starcher scored the only goal of the game with eight minutes remaining.

“Arthur [Duchense] just played the ball in off the corner, and it just basically fell in my lap,” Starcher said. “And then I was able to get a good look and put it away.”

Thomas Oliver, Marshall’s assistant coach, said he thought the biggest key to the team’s victory was its pre-game preparation.

“We had a good idea of what we wanted to do,” Oliver said. “And we thought we had a good idea of what they were going to do. As the game rolled on, it could have been anybody’s game. We felt like we had some really good chances at the end to score a couple goals, but we didn’t. And then Trevor came up with the big goal, and we hung on.”

After defeating Old Dominion, Marshall is unbeaten in its last four contests, including three consecutives wins. Before its 1-1 draw to the University of New Mexico Oct. 23, the Herd had lost seven straight matches.

Oliver said he does not think the team has gotten hot at the right time as much as it has put together solid performances as of late.

“We were a little unfortunate early in the season where the ball just didn’t bounce our way, and we lost some one-goal games,” Oliver said. “And in our conference, a lot of the games are one-goal games, and we need to have those go our way. So, the tie against New Mexico was good for us to start gaining some momentum.”

No. 7 Marshall faces No. 2 University of North Carolina at Charlotte 7 p.m. Wednesday at Transamerica Field in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Malcolm Walton can be contacted at [email protected].