— By David Walsh
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — The Marshall soccer team didn’t have coach Chris Grassie roaming the sideline Wednesday night.
The veteran coach got a red card during Saturday’s 2-0 Sun Belt Conference win at James Madison, and in turn, had to miss Wednesday’s night encounter against South Carolina at Hoops Family Field/Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex.
Associate head coach Josh Faga ran the show and handled the assignment well as Marshall blanked the Gamecocks, 4-0.
“Chris makes it easy,” Faga said. “He actually gave a speech before the game. He says how much trust he has. On the team and the trust he has in the staff. And he talked about his leadership style as he likes to empower the people around him. So it didn’t feel difficult because he empowers all of us to take on those leadership roles. So it felt kind of normal.”
No. 9 Marshall is 8-1-4 overall, 5-1-0 in the Sun Belt Conference and shares first place with Kentucky and West Virginia.
For Marshall, it marked the third straight clean sheet and yet another match where the Herd converts at least once off a set piece. This time Yasha Scharerer sent a corner kick into the box and Gabriel Stevanato headed it home in the 36th minute. David de la Vibora had scored unassisted in the 30th minute as the Herd took a 2-0 lead at the break.
“We brought in a coach who’s done an unbelievable job with the set pieces, but we as a staff actually looked at the last couple of years,” Faga said. “Actually we were one of the weakest teams on set pieces. So it was a conscious effort this summer to be better on set pieces and it’s been paying off.”
Rai Pinto, who scored on a booming free kick in the 47th minute for a 3-0 lead, agreed the added focus on set plays has paid dividends.
“We’re been working on that a lot,” Pinto said. “We have a coach just for set pieces and he’s doing like amazing work. And we’re taking advantage of that.”
Pinto put some heat on that free kick.
“Yeah I saw some space. I tried to smash the ball in there,” Pinto said. “I see it so I don’t say it’s a gamble because I practice that a lot. I say to my teammates to run in there because maybe it was not going like maybe in a good direction. For sure someone will touch it.”
Marshall completed the scoring in the 76th minute when Takahiro Fujita sent a cross high into the box and Carl Romberg went up and headed it in for his first goal.
“We talk a lot about where we want to cross the ball and where we want to be,” Faga said. “Ride in the box. And the guys have been executing that so well and it was nice to get that goal.”
Faga said the three straight shutouts is a credit to the backline and goalkeeper Eddie DeMarco.
“We had a lot of new players and we didn’t have a lot of teams trying to train with them,” Faga said. “The first few weeks were a little bit rough and now it’s starting to click. We have confidence in what we’re doing out there. We had a good look at our defensive structure. We’ve been giving up a lot less shots.”
And now the attention shifts to Old Dominion. The Herd has eliminated the Monarchs the past two seasons in the Sun Belt Tournament.
“Old Dominion has become a bit of a rivalry for us,” Faga said. “We played them twice last year and twice the year before. We’ve knocked them out of the Sun Belt Tournament two years in a row. I know they are hungry. They won’t be down.”
A key Sun Belt match Sunday features WVU taking on Kentucky in Lexington. What follows for the Herd is a trip next Friday to WVU. But first things first.
“I think our guys will kind of get up for that a little bit because they know going to ODU it’s going to be a tough game,” Faga said. “And then we turn our focus to Friday.”
Marshall has won nine straight against South Carolina and leads the series 16-5-1.
South Carolina fell to 7-6-2 and 1-3-2 in the SBC.
The Herd’s next match is Sunday at Old Dominion.