— By David Walsh
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — At the end of September, successive losses to Kentucky and West Virginia put Central Florida’s soccer record at 2-5-1.
After a meeting of the minds came a turnaround. The Knights, 8-1-2 from October to Sunday, capped off the surge with a 3-1 win over Marshall on Sunday at Hoops Family Field/Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex for the school’s first Sun Belt Conference Tournament title.
The win over the Thundering Herd atoned for a 2-0 setback to Marshall on November 4.
Before Sunday, the fifth-seeded Knights rallied from down two goals to Georgia Southern in the first round to win in overtime and then knocked off top seed Kentucky, 1-0, in the semifinals. That allowed UCF the right to play No. 3 Marshall, which had beaten Georgia State and then West Virginia in overtime, to play at home in the final — where it hadn’t lost this season.
“How incredible this group of young men are,” Knights’ coach Scott Calabrese said. “To start the season 2-5-1 and end the season as Sun Belt champions, to have to win on the road, to have to go through what the team went through, then to have to win at Marshall. What character this team has. This group has displayed growth and how much they want to keep playing. It’s an incredible achievement, and man, we put in a lot of work.”
UCF (10-6-3) secures an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. Pairings will be revealed Monday afternoon. No. 12 Marshall (11-3-5) is virtually assured a tournament berth, but must wait on seeding and the possibility of home field in the opening round.
“UCF had a rough start,” Marshall coach Chris Grassie said. “They have come through. We beat them here. Quite a comfortable game. They’ve taken that lesson and learned very well. So hats off to them.”
Frederic Benedix, after a runout, scored from outside the box to give the visitors a 1-0 lead in the 17th minute.
Lilian Ricol got free on a breakout and scored at 50:27 for a 2-0 lead. Ricol struck again on a similar play at 64:02, and the Knights, playing in front of a hostile crowd of 3,103, had a 3-0 cushion. Claudel N’Goubou assisted the first two goals.
Grassie hoped the Herd wouldn’t have a letdown after the emotional semifinal Wednesday.
“We didn’t win enough of the balls first,” Grassie said. “We didn’t do enough right things, enough gritty things. Maybe that’s trying to find things, second gear wasn’t there. I thought you look at that game a little bit differently. I thought we had a hand ball. A PK should’ve been called, at least checked. He got brought down in the box before we even had a chance. Yes you can say it was a hangover. Clearly not one of our best performances. I think in terms of fight and grit, that maybe we just didn’t have it.
“We created some things, but not enough. In too many moments where we just let them kind of run through us. That causes problems. So definitely I feel like that’s a hangover. The least brilliant performance of the season. And probably our second worst performance of the whole season. I feel like it’s hard when you celebrate that hard. It’s a rivalry game. When you celebrate like you want something that next game, you don’t play so well. That’s like what we tried to prevent.”
Marshall got a bit of life at 72:36 when Carl Romberg got a shot past Knights goalkeeper Juanvi Munzoz, who finished with season-high seven saves.
“We trained, prepared and tried to get after it,” Grassie said. “In a way they’re able to play through. I don’t think they did much tactically different. They just kind of sat back and hit us on the counter. That was literally our fault. We shot ourselves in the foot. Not attacking the ball. Did not track him. Run and just doing the basics we didn’t do. And I know these guys are better. Like I said it’s hard to come down and then get back up.”
Calabrese admitted the Knights took a lot from the first meeting.
“We learned how Marshall was going to play us,” he said. “The best thing is to understand. You can watch other teams, but then you play against Marshall. There’s not probably a team that we had more respect for. Everyone on this team knew this game would be difficult. Clearly we were able to play at a different level. You get that first goal. And you get two runout goals. How big was that? Because your three goals came from a distance.
“Marshall does a really good job. Press for repressing us. Especially when they try to put you in a box. Then you’re trying to get out. But it’s really hard to get out because of the way they’re able to repress you. The numbers that get around you. So credit these guys for being able to solve that. Find some space because Marshall doesn’t give you a whole lot. Once we did we were able to get up the field. An incredible finish from Freddie. A lot of teams have a difficult time being able to get hold of the ball. We did at the right time.”
Grassie said he had no significant motivational talk planned before Monday’s NCAA reveal.
“Let them all process it,” Grassie said. “We’ll meet later and talk. We had a patch this season. We’re creating a lot of expected goals. Other than that one week in the middle of the season we found this. Our identity. The guys know they’re good players. Perceiving a reset. It’s been one of those seasons. They’re a good bunch of players, but we didn’t play like it today. We’ve just got to refocus on the positive. You know you’re going to lose at some point, now we’re going to deal with adversity and see how good we are at bouncing back.”