MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Following a 0-0 draw at American on October 12 in WVU’s final non-conference match, Dan Stratford said that five consecutive victories would likely be needed win the Sun Belt Conference regular season title. A 2-0 win at James Madison on Tuesday brought that vision to reality as the Mountaineers shared the league title with Marshall after a fifth consecutive win.
As the Sun Belt Conference Tournament begins Sunday afternoon, Stratford is asking his team to repeat the feat with another five-match winning streak.
“We’ve set a task again to win five games. We did it five games ago. I think we could be in a position where if we could win five more here, it would put us in the last eight at nationals and we would have played five games at Dick Dlesk [Soccer Stadium] along the way,” Stratford said on Thursday. “It was kind of cool how the math worked out as I was thinking out loud in front of the group after the win at JMU.”
No. 9 West Virginia (10-2-4, 6-1-2 Sun Belt) will host No. 8 seed Georgia Southern (6-6-4, 2-5-2 Sun Belt) in the quarterfinal round Sunday at 3 p.m. The winner advances to Wednesday’s semifinal against the winner of the James Madison/Coastal Carolina quarterfinal. The three teams on WVU’s side of the bracket were the last three teams to face the Mountaineers in the regular season.
“There’s certainly some advantages to that. It is unlikely that any of the teams have changed significantly, or have had the luxury to change significantly.”
WVU defeated GSU, 1-0 on October 25. Playing on the road, the Mountaineers were a man down for 81 minutes after Tristan Pusztahegyi was assessed a red card in the 9th minute. Toby Mawer made a career-best seven saves, including one on a penalty kick. Sammie Walker scored the lone goal of the match in the 34th minute.
GSU enters the Sun Belt Tournament on a five-match losing streak and the Eagles are winless in their last seven.
West Virginia has yielded nine goals this season while posting ten shutouts. WVU is third in the NCAA in goals against average (0.56) and tied for the top mark in clean sheets.
“The form of Toby, without a doubt, in the second half of the season and the call to action he has had in certain games and how well he has done when we have needed him, has been incredibly important. Long may that continue.”
The Mountaineers and No. 2 seed Marshall enter the Sun Belt Tournament with matching 10-2-4 (6-1-2 Sun Belt) records. The Herd is on a six-match winning streak while WVU is unbeaten and has not yielded a goal in their last six matches. Should both WVU and Marshall advance to the championship on November 15, an eighth meeting in the last four years between the rivals will settle the story.
“Chris [Grassie] shared some messages and a brief exchange to congratulate one another. But we’ll both kind of want to settle this with meeting in the final in another three games time.”
Through Tuesday’s play, Marshall is 13th in the NCAA RPI, while the Mountaineers are 17th. The top 16 teams earn national seeds and a first round bye in the 48-team NCAA Tournament.
“I have a hard time believing that there is any version of three wins or advancing to the championship game and winning that doesn’t put us in the Top 16, maybe the Top 8, if it is truly three wins and not ties with PK results.”
Entering the knockout stage of the season, Stratford says analytics have an increased impact on how his team can best navigate penalty kick shootouts if they are needed to decide a match after 110 minutes of play.
“Long gone are the days where you just see if there are five players that fancy taking one and you figure out a list in the moment. I think there is a lot more science and methodology around it now. We are trying to stay as relevant and up with the times on all of those subtle advantages.”
The Sun Belt co-regular season championship is WVU’s second in the last three seasons.
“I really do think it is the best barometer of who the best team is in the conference over the course of nine rounds of games.
“To put ourselves in that position this year and to do it the way we had to do it this year when we knew we had ground to make up about midway through, was incredibly special.”