Men’s Soccer Suffers Overtime Loss at Akron

Box Score (PDF)

AKRON, Ohio – The Marshall men's soccer team lost its first match of the season, 2-1, in overtime on the road against the Akron Zips, on Tuesday. Akron scored the game-winner with 1:55 left on the clock in the first overtime.

Marshall is now 3-1-1 while the Zips improve to 1-0-1. Both Marshall (No. 9) and Akron (No. 7) are ranked in the top 10 in the Top Drawer Soccer poll. The NCAA/United Soccer Coaches have yet to put out a top 25 for the spring.

"A very exciting contest," Herd assistant coach Petsa Ivanovic said. "We struggled to adjust to the playing surface and to get moving after being on the bus for a few hours in the first 15-20 minutes, but interestingly enough, once we considered the first goal we seemed to wake up and find our rhythm. We were able to score a goal and get back in the game. Unfortunately, we had a player sent off and we had to abandon our game plan and try to get the result.

"Our guys have put in a hell of an effort to fight all the adversity for the rest of the regular time and in the overtime. Our players were very organized and followed all of the instructions we have given them. Every time we would get on the ball and try to establish a possession and move the game forward, Akron players would foul us and stop us in our tracks, which made the game even more difficult for us. We had to resort to long balls and hoping for a chance to get in behind them.

"Akron is a very good and organized team with a lot of good players so their constant attacks were not an easy task for our guys to handle. Once again hats down to our guys for their extremely hard work and commitment and for representing our program in the best possible manner. We have to learn from a few errors that we made, and move on to our game on Saturday against South Carolina in conference USA."

Akron got on the board first in the 14th minute. Junior Vitor Dias hit the equalizer on a pass from redshirt sophomore Milo Yosef in the 20th minute. For Dias, it was his career-high fourth goal of the season and he now leads the Herd.

Marshall freshman Kain Reed was issued a red card in the 22nd minute, so the Herd had to finish out the rest of the match, just over 76 minutes, with 10 on the field. The defense did an excellent job limiting some of Akron's advances. The Zips outshot Marshall, 12-4, in the contest with the bulk coming after the red card.

The match remained tied throughout the physical battle all the way through the 90th minute and the first buzzer. Akron finally ended the match late in the first overtime period. Junior goalkeeper Oliver Semmle finished the day with two saves, including a diving effort midway through the second half.

Five players for the Herd played all 98 minutes.

Next up for Marshall is the Conference USA-opener on the road at South Carolina. Kickoff from Columbia, S.C., is set for Saturday, March 6 at 2 p.m.

For all of the latest information on the Marshall men's soccer team, follow the Herd on Twitter @HerdMSoccer, Facebook at Marshall University Soccer and on www.herdzone.com.

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Team Stats

Vitor Dias

Milo Yosef

Vinicius Fernandes

Max Schneider

Players Mentioned

Vitor Dias

Kain Reed

Oliver Semmle

Milo Yosef

Players Mentioned

Vitor Dias

Kain Reed

Oliver Semmle

Milo Yosef

Marshall University Athletics