MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — With a win Thursday night against Coastal Carolina, 13th-ranked West Virginia was assured of playing for a Sun Belt Conference regular season championship Tuesday at James Madison.
That created a somewhat uneasy feeling for WVU head coach Dan Stratford entering the matchup.
“The reality of getting three wins in a row and then having this game here, I knew it would be a tricky game in terms of mentality, just because it’s easy to look past it and think JMU is where it’s going to be decided,” Stratford said.
But there was no letup, as the Mountaineers got a goal in each half and shutout the opposition for a fifth consecutive match to claim a 2-0 victory over the Chanticleers.
“At this stage in the season, if you had offered me 2-nil 2 hours ago, I’d shake your hands and we all could’ve gone home,” Stratford said.
With the result, WVU (9-2-4, 5-1-2 SBC) moved into sole possession of first place in the league ahead of Friday’s action and wrapped up an unbeaten regular season at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium with an 8-0-1 mark.
“It’s really special. We came into this as one of our goals that we don’t lose at home,” said Sammie Walker, who scored the Mountaineers’ second goal of the match for his fifth this season. “It’s really important for us. It’s been a strength for us in the program for a long time, so we want to keep that tradition.”
WVU struck first Thursday in the 26th minute when Kanta Ishii found a crack in the Coastal defense and setup Julen Recalde on a perfectly-placed cross that enabled him to beat Chanticleers’ goalkeeper Nash Skoglund from close range.
The Mountaineers controlled the match throughout the first 45 minutes, but settled for the 1-0 halftime lead despite generating nine first-half corner kicks and four of the five shots on goal between the two teams.
Coastal (5-6-4, 3-3-2) had perhaps its best chance at an equalizer in the 57th minute when Robert Valdimarsson got off a shot that was stopped by WVU keeper Toby Mawer, and on the rebound seconds later, Daniel Fiol missed wide with the majority of the goal open.
“We started the game superbly and overwhelmed them a little bit, but they grew into the game in the second half,” Stratford said. “A credit to them from that perspective.”
West Virginia doubled its lead in the 77th minute when Isaac Scheer fed Joshua Jones, who sent a cross into the box that Walker capitalzed on with a sliding goal that made it 2-0.
“It’s definitely important for us that we get to that line and cross balls in,” Walker said. “Kanta is a great server of the ball and Josh Jones is as well. If you get into the right positions, they know they can place it in the right place and it’s just a tap in from there.”
The Mountaineers now have 17 points in league play to 14 for Marshall and JMU. On Friday, the Dukes play at Old Dominion and the Thundering Herd are at South Carolina. Should both JMU and Marshall win, it would create a three-way tie ahead of Tuesday, when the Dukes welcome the Mountaineers and the Herd are home to face the Monarchs. Should both teams lose Friday, WVU is assured of a share of the Sun Belt regular season title.
In the event WVU wins at James Madison and Marshall is victorious in its last two matches, the Mountaineers and Herd would split the Sun Belt regular season crown, while West Virginia would almost certainly be the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament based on goal differential against common opponents.
Across its four-match win streak, WVU has outscored the opposition, 10-0.
“When you’re prepping as a coach, you’re worried that a game like today could get overlooked for the wrong reasons, because your attention turns to, if we do win five games, here’s the outcome and the outcome of winning a Sun Belt Conference title can then add pressure to the likes of a game tonight,” Stratford said. “We felt that a little bit by not taking full advantage in the first half and being up more than a goal, and they started to gather some momentum in that first 15 minute period of the second half. But the depth helped, we weathered the storm and found a way to get a second goal, and then I could breathe a little bit.”