Cleveland State’s men’s soccer team fell to No. 12 Marshall 1-0 on Thursday evening in Huntington, WV, a defeat that ended the Vikings’ season in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The decisive play came early in the 28th minute of the match, essentially beginning when the Thundering Herd’s Alvaro Alvarez was fouled by CSU defender Uros Jevtic.
On the free kick caused by the infraction, placed roughly 15 feet outside of the Cleveland State penalty area, Joao Roberto first bluffed a move on the ball. David de la Vibora then followed up with the real attempt, striking past Vikings goalkeeper Ryan Poling for what would be the only score of the match.
Poling was otherwise brilliant, making three saves on Marshall’s four tries on goal. Arguably, his best effort came roughly ten minutes before the tally, when the graduate student from Avon, OH dove to his left and got a hand on Kirill Pakhomov’s blast aimed just inside the post.
Though CSU was outshot during the match, the Vikings did manage a 4-3 edge in the category during the second half, while pushing for an equalizer. Over the entire 90 minutes, the visitors logged six shots, including two each by Uzman Ramees and Paolo Roditti. HL championship hero Matteo Correia and Tom Mertz had the other two tries.
Only one went on goal, however. It came from Roditti in the sixth minute, after Mertz was tripped from behind as he raced into the Marshall half of the field. Fefo Granados took the ensuing free kick, sending it to his left and towards the back-side post. Roditti managed to get his head to it off of a bounce, but it was a routine save for the Thundering Herd’s Eijin Magota.
The loss represents the end of the line for the 2025 edition of the Vikings, finalizing their record at 9-4-6, but the group still managed to assemble one of the best seasons in program history.
Things began inauspiciously, with a draw against Santa Clara, and losses at Grand Canyon and Akron. From there, however, CSU ran off a 12-game unbeaten streak – including several contests with dramatic finishes – to move into the driver’s seat in the conference race.
The last match in the run was no exception. On October 31st at IU Indianapolis, Cleveland State fell behind 1-0, before Ramees leveled the score just after halftime. In the final minute of play, Daniel Celso delivered an unlikely victory, which clinched the Horizon League regular season championship. The Vikings added their third-ever HL tournament title to the year’s trophy case after defeating both Robert Morris and Purdue Fort Wayne in the playoffs, the latter result delivered by a Correia header in the second overtime period.
He was named the most valuable player of the championships, largely based on that work, and was joined on the all-tournament squad by Ramees, Mertz, and Poling.
That quartet, along with Jevtic, Peleg Armendariz, Lennart Heck, and Ognjen Bozovic were named to the Horizon League’s all-conference teams at the end of the regular season, while Poling (Goalkeeper of the Year), Jevtic (Defensive Player of the Year), Ramees (Freshman of the Year), and head coach Sinisa Ubiparipovic (Coach of the Year) secured specialty awards.
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