No. 5 West Virginia men’s soccer is set to face South Carolina in the semi-finals of the Sun Belt championship 7 p.m. Wednesday at the UCF Soccer Complex in Orlando.
The third-seeded Mountaineers are coming off a 3-1 victory over six-seedGeorgia State in the quarterfinals and can improve their chances at a chance to get a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament with a victory over South Carolina.
West Virginia found themself behind against Georgia State 1-0, before scoring three unanswered, putting away the Panthers. Luke McCormick scored the first goal and Yutaro Tsukada delivered the two that followed.
South Carolina did the Mountaineers some favors as they are 6-8-3 on the season. South Carolina is coming off an upset win against the hosting second-seeded Knights by a score of 2-1.
West Virginia came out on top in a contest between the two schools earlier in the season on Oct. 12 by a score of 3-2 in South Carolina.
Marcus Calderia is the Mountaineers leading scorer with 12 goals and Tsukada has the most assists with nine.
On the other side of the bracket, No. 1 Marshall will host No. 5 Kentucky. The Wildcats were Sun Belt champions in 2022, but Marshall comes in ranked as the No. 1 team in the country, even having lost to Kentucky on Oct. 22, 2-0.
West Virginia will be playing to advance to the Sun Belt finals for a shot to win their first championship since the inception of the tournament in 2015. West Virginia was in their first year in the Sun Belt last season, coming over from the MAC. The match can be streamed on ESPN+ and is set to kickoff at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
