Ohio State men’s soccer is looking to do something this weekend that it’s never done before, but the Buckeyes don’t feel like they need to do anything different than what they’ve done all season.
The Buckeyes are set to make their second-ever appearance in the NCAA College Cup as they face Marshall in the national semifinals on Friday night (approximately 7:30 p.m. on ESPNU). If the top-seeded Buckeyes defeat the 13th-seeded Thundering Herd, they’ll advance to Monday night’s national championship game (8 p.m., ESPN2) to face the winner of Friday’s first semifinal between No. 3 seed Denver and unseeded Vermont.
Should Ohio State win two games in Cary, North Carolina, the Buckeyes would return to Columbus as national champions for the first time in program history. Ohio State lost to Wake Forest in the national championship game in its only previous College Cup appearance in 2007.
For the current crop of Buckeyes who had never made it past the second round of the NCAA Tournament, just getting to this point is a dream come true. But they don’t want to come home emptyhanded.
“I've always wanted to play in Cary. It's always been a dream to play in Cary. You want to be playing at this time of the year, so I think all of us are excited to go play and hopefully win it,” junior midfielder Luciano Pechota said Wednesday.
While Ohio State can be considered the favorite to win it all as the top-ranked team in the country, the Buckeyes know nothing will come easily this weekend. Going into Friday’s semifinals, Ohio State coach Brian Maisonneuve and his players say they’re focused only on beating Marshall, who they’re familiar with from playing the Thundering Herd in a spring exhibition.
That said, Ohio State hasn’t changed anything in its preparation for the College Cup from what it’s been doing all season.
“This is a big game, but nothing changes in our focus, our preparation, how we're going to attack the game,” Maisonneuve said. “Yeah, there's some different tactical things we're going to do for Marshall because they're an extremely talented team and they definitely pose some challenges. We'll address that, but nothing changes from the last couple games. We're going to attack it the same way.”
Ohio State has no reason to change things up. After all, the Buckeyes have lost just one game this season. Holding a 16-1-4 record for the year, Ohio State has been the No. 1-ranked team since October and has backed up that ranking by winning the Big Ten Tournament (after earning a share of the Big Ten regular-season championship) and advancing to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament.
The Buckeyes have faced their share of close calls in NCAA Tournament play, as they fell into an early 1-0 hole before beating Western Michigan 2-1 in their first game of the tournament and needed penalty kicks to advance past Stanford in the Sweet 16. But those challenges have helped steel the Buckeyes for the tests they could face in Cary.
“We've had lots of different things thrown at us, whether it was the penalties like you talked about, going down behind in the Western Michigan game, difficult field conditions over in Chicago (in the Big Ten Tournament),” said senior defender Deylen Vellios. “I mean, yeah, lots of things have been thrown at it, but I think it kind of is a testament to our group of how strong and just how adaptable everyone's been so far.”
A look back at our quarterfinal win over Wake Forest that sent us to the College Cup!
— Ohio State Mens Soccer (@OhioStateMSOC) December 11, 2024
B1G v ACC #gobucks #doitfordolla pic.twitter.com/ZRlSCXYn75
Ohio State has been facing an even tougher challenge off the field this week as one of its starters, redshirt junior defender Nathan Demian, was seriously injured last weekend when he was hit in the abdomen by a stray bullet off-campus. Demian nearly died on the operating table, his family told CTV, but is fortunately on the road to recovery now.
“He’s a strong kid, and all the doctors have said he's going to make a really, really fast recovery,” Demian’s brother Joel told CTV.
Demian’s Ohio State teammates were able to visit him at the hospital earlier this week before they left for Cary, where he encouraged them just as much as they encouraged him. The Buckeyes didn’t need any extra motivation for this weekend with a national championship on the line, but they got it anyway from Demian, whose first question after he got out of surgery was whether he’d be able to play in the College Cup.
“He's the type of guy who’s put his heart and soul into coming here every day and playing. He's somebody we all look up to in that sense as well. So going to Cary and trying to do it for him, I mean, it's the least any of us could do,” Pechota said.
Off to College Cup!!! #gobucks #doitfordolla pic.twitter.com/gxgVCs7LO8
— Ohio State Mens Soccer (@OhioStateMSOC) December 11, 2024
Ohio State will miss Demian both on and off the field in Cary, as he’s started 12 games on the Buckeyes’ back line, but they know Demian will be with them in spirit as he watches them play from Columbus.
“Guys are going to rally around Nate and use his spirit and who he is to give it all they have. So for sure, it'll be an added motivation,” Maisonneuve said. “You're in the final four, looking for a spot in the championship game, so obviously that's pretty special as well. But the motivation to do it for Nate is going to be huge for these guys.”
Winning a national championship in soccer would be uncharted territory for Ohio State, and it’s a sport where the margin between victory and defeat is often very slim as the scoreboard doesn’t always reflect who’s controlling the action. But the Buckeyes have found a way to win all year with their excellence on both sides of the ball as they’ve scored the fifth-most goals of any team (51) while they’ve allowed only 18, less than one per game.
That gives the entire team confidence that they’re ready for the challenge in front of them this weekend and capable of winning the program’s first-ever national title.
“It all kind of comes down to our preparation and how we handle going into games,” Vellios said. “I mean, we've been playing essentially what feels like championship games for the past four weeks now. It's been win or you go home, and we've kind of applied that mindset to everything now, and we're kind of prepared for that kind of high-stakes situation. The boys have been handling it really well and I'm really proud of everyone so far, and just got to keep it going through this weekend.”
