ODU Men's Soccer Defeats JMU 1-0 To Earn Bid To Sun Belt Conference Tournament

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – Coaches at every level in every sport preach to their players that hustle wins games. And that old axiom proved to true Tuesday night for the Old Dominion men’s soccer team.

With 27 minutes left to play, Micah Wayland scooped up the ball and fired a hurry-up inbounds pass toward a streaking Timothy Ennin.

Ennin, the seventh-year senior from Hartford, Connecticut, broke away from two defenders, cradled the ball with his left leg and then used his right to softly kick it in over James Madison goalie Sebastian Conlon and into the goal.

ODU made the goal stand up and claimed a 1-0 victory over the Dukes and thus secured themselves a place in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.

ODU (7-7-2 overall, 3-5-1 Sun Belt), which finished seventh in the league, will take on second-place Marshall Sunday at 3 p.m. on the Thundering Herd's home field in the Sun Belt Tournament.  

The No. 6 ranked Thundering Herd (9-1-6) finished with a 0-0 tie against West Virginia. ODU lost at Marshall, 2-1, earlier this season.

ODU finished last season with seven consecutive losses, and although they slumped at mid-season this year, have won three of their last four games, including their last two.

“Things hadn’t been going our way,” Ennin said. “We’ve had some unlucky results, losing to Marshall and West Virginia by a goal was tough. But we’ve got a hell of a heart to bounce back toward the end of the season.

“It was just grit and hard work, loving each other and battling all over the field.”

Tuesday’s match, matching two schools in the TowneBank Royal Rivalry, was physical and hard-fought.

ODU outshot the Dukes (7-4-6, 3-3-3) by a 15-11 margin and had better scoring chances than JMU.

Two minutes after scoring what proved to be the game-winner, Ennin picked off a pass and had a breakaway chance, but scooted the ball just left of the net.

JMU played aggressively in the final minutes, but ODU’s defenders, and goalkeeper Michael Statham, kept the Dukes out of the net. Statham finished with five saves.

After scoring the game-winner, Ennin delighted an enthusiastic crowd of nearly 500 by doing a hand spring and then a back flip.

“It was something I practiced when I was younger,” he said. “I haven’t pulled it out in a while."

The timing seemed appropriate, said Tennant McVea, ODU's first-year head coach.

"I'm super proud of the guys tonight and the way we finished the regular season," McVea said. "They've been really resilient and worked hard."

McVea said when Wayland began to throw in the ball, he was yelling to his players to slow down.

"I was like, 'slow it down,' but then he picks it up and throws it and we get a goal. That goes to show how much I know.

"Timmy has that ability. We've been asking him to threaten more often and he did that tonight. He should have had a second goal. 

"It's been a really long season for Tim. He scored early and then didn't score for a while, and he's scored goals in back-to-back games."

McVea said his Monarchs will do their best to pull off the upset against No. 6 Marshall.

"I really felt good about our performance when we played them in Huntington. Now we need to figure out how we can go there and get the result that we want," he said.

"It's going to be a tough game but I feel very good about this group. We're going to go to Marshall and give it everything we've got."