MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Overcoming the emotions that come with senior night can be a difficult task.
Someone forgot to inform the 19th-ranked West Virginia men’s soccer team ahead of Friday’s match with No. 11 Marshall.
On a night when an accomplished WVU senior class was honored prior to an already spirited contest, two Mountaineers playing their final regular season home match at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium combined for three goals to key West Virginia to a convincing 3-0 win over the Herd before a crowd of 2,092.
With the victory, WVU (11-3-2, 6-2-0) overtakes Marshall (8-2-5, 5-2-1) for solo possession of second place in the Sun Belt Conference with 18 points. Kentucky, by virtue of its 1-0 victory against Georgia State on Friday, increased its point total to 21 and claimed the SBC regular season championship.
“As great as tonight is, I hate to have to say it, but we should’ve been winning a conference title tonight with the results that we didn’t get at Georgia State and Kentucky,” WVU head coach Dan Stratford said. “But we’ve given ourselves a chance and an advantage to make sure the seniors get to play here again, and conceivably play here again against Marshall [in a Sun Belt semifinal], which would be a cool thing to do. We’re very happy with tonight. As well as we did, Marshall is still a very good team and that was a difficult game that we really showed up for, so I’m proud of the guys.”
FINAL: West Virginia 3, Marshall 0
Mountaineers improve to 11-3-2 and 6-2 in Sun Belt. A win Tuesday at South Carolina would ensure WVU of second-place finish in Sun Belt.
Marshall falls to 8-2-5 and 5-2-1 in Sun Belt. pic.twitter.com/7hLeNKalmb
— Greg Carey (@gcarey938) November 1, 2025
With one regular season match remaining, WVU can secure second place in the Sun Belt with a win or tie Tuesday at South Carolina. Marshall, with 16 points, is in solo possession of third place in the Sun Belt entering its final regular season match against Central Florida, which will be played the same night. The Herd can finish anywhere from second to fifth in the conference pending the results of Tuesday matches.
“Every year our first goal of the season is to win the regular season,” Marshall head coach Chris Grassie said. “We had a great chance to come here and put ourselves in position to do that. We haven’t won here and this is such a huge game for what it means for soccer in the state and me personally and everybody connected with Marshall. You’re kind of punching up a little bit with it and from a soccer standpoint, it’s almost like they take it as a bigger game for them than maybe it is for us. At least when we come here, that’s what it feels like. When we get them at home, it’s a little bit different.”
A strong individual effort from Marcus Caldeira led to the Mountaineers’ first goal as the senior forward maintained possession from just beyond midfield until the edge of the 18-yard box, before sending a shot from right to left and beyond Herd goalkeeper Eddie DeMarco in the 23rd minute.
With the goal, Caldeira moved into second place all-time in goals at WVU with 36.
“Initially, I was still a little bit emotional, because I know my time here is limited, but at the end of the day, I was just hungry and playing in front of my family means the world to me,” Calderia said. T”hey’re the ones that put that hunger in me. I went out and just played.”
WVU’s 1-0 lead remained intact through the first half, while the home team entered the intermission with all four shots on goal to that point.
The Mountaineers continued to apply pressure on a somewhat consistent basis and it paid off when Dante Huckaby stuffed home a Juan Alvarez corner kick for his first career goal at WVU at the 62:46 mark. Huckaby, a Morgantown native, is in his third season with the Mountaineers after starting his career at Louisville.
“I have to make sure I give a lot of praise to Nick Scargle. We were in the office trying to make that decision and talking about who we were going to play and at one point, I was stupid enough to say should we literally just flip a coin, because they’ve both been in really good form,” Stratford said. “It was that deciding factor of Dante’s played in this game before, a local boy and he has experience in the fixture. It was such a razor thin decision, but what a special moment for a Morgantown kid to score a really crucial goal at the stage of the game he did and a memory that will last a lifetime.”
Any thought of a late Herd rally essentially vanished less than 10 minutes later when Caldeira received a feed in the box, played a touch off a Marshall defender and put one home from close range.
“As an outlet in man-for-man coverage and when he was in single isolation, they couldn’t deal with him,” Stratford said. “His capacity to show up and be a man today was really big. I was curious how Marcus would respond today knowing it was senior night and how special his time here has been and how he reflects on that, and I was hoping that the emotion of it and occasion of it wouldn’t be too much for him, and he goes and does that. A good point in the season for him to have a game like that and hopefully kick it on to make sure we make this thing last as long as humanly possible.”
WVU finished with an 8-2 edge in shots on goal. DeMarco made five saves and Mountaineer keeper Marc Bonnaire stopped both shots he faced in the team’s eighth shutout this season.
Before Friday, Marshall had not allowed three goals in a match this season.
“We weren’t great tonight. We had an off night,” Grassie said. “Unfortunately we’ve had a few off nights here. Credit to them. They did a really good job and they didn’t make any mistakes. There was nothing to capitalize on.”