— By David Walsh
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall soccer coach Chris Grassie called it a must-win match.
James Madison, the Sun Belt Conference leader, appeared it would spoil the moment when Chris Niblock scored in the 83rd minute to give the Dukes a 1-0 lead.
Marshall pleaded for an offside whistle as the play developed and eventually referee Joshua Brooks went to VAR (video assistant referee) to see if the goal should count, and it was ultimately waved off as a result of offside.
With the match still scoreless in the 84th minute, Marshall’s Adam N’Goran took a pass from Gabriel Stevenato, raced down the left side and blasted a shot past Dukes’ keeper Erik Jaspers to give the home team a 1-0 victory at Hoops Family Field/Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex on a chilly Wednesday evening.
The dejected Dukes saw their win streak end at four and their unbeaten streak was halted at eight.
“We knew we had to win it,” Grassie said. “If we want to win the league we’ve got to win the next four games. Obviously we have some very good teams. We can only control what we can control. This puts us a little bit closer.”
JMU (7-5-2, 4-1-1 SBC) remains atop the conference standings with 13 points, while the Herd, West Virginia and South Carolina follow in a three-way tie for second with 11 points apiece.
Grassie liked his team’s execution in the pivotal game.
“I thought tactically our guys executed perfectly,” Grassie said. We put in a lot of hard yards, defended smartly and got the clean sheet. We don’t want to talk about that, but it’s nice to get one.”
As for the goal JMU had waved off, Grassie had a strong feeling it could be offside, but wasn’t thrilled with how the Herd defended.
“I was disappointed with our coverage at the corner,” Grassie said. “We had the chance and let the ball come out, let it bobble, let it go forward, and didn’t attack the ball. I was looking at the tactics of that to do better. Then you can see it’s offside. That’s why we have that twirly (review). That’s why you have those moments. I thought we had a couple called back (offside). It broke our way on this one.”
JMU still leads the league with 13 points. Wins by Marshall (7-2-4, 3-1-2), West Virginia and South Carolina are in a three-way tie for second with 11 points. All three are 3-1-2 in three matches left in the regular season.
N’Goran knew where to place the shot on the lone goal of the match and had new belief following the Dukes’ goal being waved off.
“A good run, but you could see he was offside,” N’Goran said. “On the goal, I got the ball on the left, went in and kept the (hard) shot low. We had seen earlier he had trouble on low shots.” It went off the keeper’s hands and into the net.
“It was a must-win,” N’Goran said. “It’s been an up-and-down year. We’ve got to finish strong.”
Grassie felt the lone goal of the match was perfectly placed.
“(Jaspers) is susceptible to shots down low,” Grassie said. “We looked at video and noticed that. Obviously a great run. He had just one thing on his mind when he turned the corner. I’m going to finish this. I’m not passing to anybody. I appreciate him making that decision.”
With inside 1 minute to play, the Herd dodged a bullet as a close-range shot from Niblock went just wide.
James Madison coach Paul Zazenski says team can learn from the disappointment.
“Our guys battled tonight but came up a bit short,” Zazenski said. “The last 10 minutes of the match was a bit of a whirlwind, but that is what happens in high-level college soccer matches. We need to learn from this result and apply the next time out. We competed it just didn’t go our way tonight.”
Marshall (7-2-4, 3-1-2) returns to the pitch Sunday against Georgia State in Atlanta. The Herd then visit South Carolina on October 30 and close the regular season at home on November 3 against Old Dominion.