Even before kickoff, the final of the NCAA men's soccer championship was special as a meeting between two underdogs. Marshall, which won its first title in the 2020 season as an unseeded team, was the 13th seed this year and reached the final by defeating No. 1 Ohio State. Meanwhile, unseeded Vermont beat two-seed Pitt and three-seed Denver on its way to the title game. The Thundering Herd and Catamounts put together a real thriller Monday night, as Vermont won its first championship in program history on a sudden-death goal in overtime.
That goal is at the 7:56 mark of the highlight reel below, though the entire second half of the match was very dramatic. Marshall took a 1-0 lead in the 57th minute after Vermont keeper Niklas Herceg mishandled a tough cross right into the path of Tarik Pannholzer. Herceg kept his team in it with a beautiful save minutes later, and in the 81st minute, Marcell Papp took advantage of a poor clearance from Marshall keeper Aleksa Janjic to start and finish a one-two with a shot from just inside the box. You're here for the winner, though. In overtime, centerback Zach Barrett intercepted a pass in the Vermont half and smacked a speculative longball for Maximilian Kissel. The forward shrugged off his defender, then dribbled around Janjic and scored.
This is the University of Vermont's first national championship in a sport outside of skiing; when the school reached the final, it became the first team from the America East conference to do so. The Catamounts are unlikely winners, although this title follows strong runs in recent seasons: They lost in the quarterfinals in 2022 and in the third round last year. Scoring late is also somewhat of a trademark for Vermont, as they recorded 22 goals in the 76th minute or later this season. The Catamounts also became, by my unscientific reckoning, the team with the coolest-named mascot to win an NCAA title this year—an equally prestigious honor, no doubt.
