MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — After watching Georgia Southern build a 2-0 lead with goals less than a minute apart in the first half, West Virginia found a way back to erase a multi-goal deficit with a 3-2 victory in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament quarterfinals.
With the win, the top-seeded Mountaineers (11-1-6) will host Kentucky Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the semifinal round.
The Eagles (6-7-2) scored goals 55 seconds apart. The first came in the 36th minute when Zachary Martin scored off a corner kick from Massimo Caruso. Just seconds later, a foul in the box came Georgia Southern a penalty kick opportunity to double the lead. Marc Bonnaire made the initial save but Martin slotted home the rebound to make the score 2-0.
West Virginia received a much-needed boost with ten seconds remaining in the half. Marcus Caldeira buried a penalty kick, trimming the deficit to 2-1 at intermission.
“It was huge. The timing of it lifted not just us, but the crowd as well,” said WVU head coach Dan Stratford. “We kind of carried that momentum out into the second half. We had some good early chances in the second half as well.”
WVU drew level in the 62nd minute. On one of their eleven corner kicks in the match, Carlos Hernando headed home a corner from Frederik Jorgensen.
“It is an area we have revamped. We had to kind of rip up what we were doing to start the game with because it has not been good enough. The quality of delivery has been there for the most part this season. For whatever reason, we just haven’t found ourselves on the end of things.”
With eight minutes to play in regulation, Dante Huckaby’s cross into the box was headed into the net by Sergio Ors Navarro to give West Virginia a lead they would not relinquish. It was Ors Navarro’s team-leading 13th goal of the season.
“We live for these moments, to be honest as futbol players,” Ors Navarro said. “I love scoring goals and I love helping the team as much as I can and obviously it was a winning goal and coming back from 2-nil down feels great.”
“Credit to the group and [Ors Navarro], for the resilience we showed and you see the strength of character to fight back from the most difficult position we have been in maybe this year,” Stratford said.
WVU held a 20-8 edge in shots.
West Virginia will have two days of recovery time before Wednesday’s semifinal match, their quickest turnaround of the season. The Mountaineers entered the weekend ranked 19th in the NCAA RPI as their push for a national seed in the NCAA Tournament continues. WVU and Kentucky played to a scoreless draw in Morgantown on September 27.
“It is extremely difficult for the players to full recover,” Stratford said. “I’d be lying if we weren’t trying to manage the depth of the squad hopefully with one eye on Wednesday as well.”