Heading into the national semifinals, No. 5 West Virginia men’s soccer coach Dan Stratford expressed the amount of confidence he has in his team.
“There’s no way we don’t believe, there’s no way,” Stratford said. “We were a .500 team last year that didn’t make the national tournament and now we’re in the Final Four. So, what is there to fear, what is there to lose? There wouldn’t have been many that circled us for a college cup in 2023. We felt otherwise, we believed that this was a part of our process and could be something we could achieve.”
When the Mountaineers travel to Louisville to compete against Clemson, they’ll be making the program’s first-ever appearance in the College Cup compared to the Tigers’ 10th, they were national champions in 2021.
“I think Clemson [is] ahead of us as far as its tradition and obviously their capacity to create the platform where they’ve sustained their success. We’re an aspiring program that wants to get to 10 college cups and have that type of tradition here as well.”
West Virginia has had a thrilling season so far including a 5-2 win over former No. 1 Marshall in the Mountain State Derby in front of a sold-out crowd at Dlesk Stadium and making it to the SunBelt finals yet feel like there is more to prove.
“Our guys are just excited for the opportunity, excited to get to Louisville and looking forward to the [ability] to showcase what we can do here at West Virginia,” Stratford said.
Kickoff from Lynn Family Stadium will be at 6:00 p.m. EST on Friday, the game can be streamed on ESPN+.
