Yesterday, I told you about what @flowerbaby and I did before the soccer game. That post got so long and had so many photos that I had to separate the end of the night into its own individual post. This is part 2 of our Saturday in Huntington.
The main event was something I had been looking forward to for weeks. Marshall University Thundering Herd were to host the West Virginia Mountaineers for a huge matchup between their men's soccer squads. There are so many reasons why this game is such a huge one. Marshall vs WVU is the biggest rivalry that the state of West Virginia has in terms of sports. No matter which sport they are playing, everybody and their momma shows up to watch the game.
On top of that, Marshall was looking to finally get a win vs WVU again after a draw and loss during the previous two matches in 2021. In fact, the last time that Marshall beat WVU was back on 11/24/19 when they defeated them at home during the NCAA Tournament to move on to the Sweet 16 in the Thundering Herd's first NCAA Tournament appearance. Marshall actually went on to win the 2020 National Championship that year against Indiana. I wasn't in attendance for that, but as seen in this video it ended in spectacular fashion when Marshall nailed a goal in overtime to bring home their first-ever National Championship.
@flowerbaby had only been to one other soccer game with me a few weeks back when we went to watch UC play. We had decent fun at that one, but it was nowhere near as big of a deal as this next match. Marshall is currently ranked #4 in the country and WVU started the season in the top 25, despite dropping several matches and losing that placement. Both were solid clubs and then add in the whole rivalry aspect and things were insanely hyped.
The UC game we went to had just over 100 people there to watch. This Marshall/WVU game had 2,735 people there. It was totally sold out, but luckily we purchased our tickets far in advance. They were giving out free t-shirts to the first 400 people to get there. I made sure we got there way earlier than the 7:15 pm start time. We arrived at 5:45, yet still there was a line of hundreds of people there already. This goes from everything to families with young children, drunk college kids, and old people who have gone to nearly every Marshall sporting event for 50 years straight. I was able to get one shirt, but it was a size XXXL and way too big for me. I know my dad will love it though, so I'm going to give it to him the next time I see him.
We were able to secure some good seats on the far side of the field. It was just bleachers with no backs, but we got lucky and a spot at the top so we could rest our backs on the fence. By the time the game actually started, we realized that we would be standing the entire match. Every person in the crowd elected to stand and be loud cheering for their team. 90% of the crowd were Marshall fans, but there were definitely some WVU people there. It seemed like mostly college-aged people there, seeing as it was a college game that didn't surprise me. What's weird to me is how young all of these people looked. I still feel like I'm 21 and these kids looked like high schoolers to me still. The thing is, they were all 18+. It reminded me of my times attending Marshall back in 2011-12.
The first half was a fight between two of the best defenses I have seen in quite some time. Neither team was allowing the other to infiltrate their box and there were maybe a couple of shots from each time, none were close to going in. A lot of the crowd had become frustrated since nobody scored during the first half. I heard several kids say it was the first time they'd ever watched a soccer match in their entire life. Others were saying things like "This fucking sucks, it's so boring". @flowerbaby began to become one of those chanters once the second half started and the fight to get a shot off stayed about the same.
I told her that we just couldn't leave early. I had to see who won and didn't want to miss out on the result. I'm so glad that we stayed because things finally got exciting towards the end of the game. WVU had one shot that I thought for sure was a goal, but Marshall's goalie made an elite-level save to keep things even.
Then, in the 85th minute, my favorite player on the Marshall team Milo Yosef saved the night. He is this black dude from Germany with blonde hair and my god was he lighting quick. Every time that he took off sprinting, I was amazed at his speed and knew that he was by far the biggest threat on the pitch. My analysis was correct, as he took off down the field right in front of us towards WVU's goal and somehow managed to get in the box and nail a stunner right past the goalie. The crowd went absolutely nuts and I couldn't help but join in on the screaming immediately. I don't consider myself a die-hard fan, but it was impossible to ignore the rush that the stadium was feeling. Although most of the game was boring, this goal alone made the entire thing well worth the price of admission.
Marshall should jump up to #3 in the nation after this win as Syracuse who was ranked 3rd just lost to Virginia a couple of days ago. Wake Forest is still undefeated and Washington is also having a great year so far, so they will probably both stay ahead of Marshall. Still, for such a small school like Marshall to be one of the top teams in all of college soccer here in the USA, it is such a massive feat. I really hope Marshall manages to win another National Championship this year. They've still got a long way to go before they can do that though. It would also be really cool to see Marshall and WVU get matched up again during the tournament.
I would be so upset if I hadn't gone to this game and I'm glad that @flowerbaby was able to make it through all of it with me. It ended a little after 9 pm and then we had to drive home. I think we both had plenty of adrenaline left over from the game to stay awake. We made it home safely.
Thanks for reading my post today. If you want more information about the results of the game, you can visit herdzone.com