Photo by Emily Daniels Marshall’s Mookae Stee controls the ball during their game against Fairmont on Thursday. The Tigers defeated the Cardinals 3-2.

MARSHALL – The last time the Marshall boys soccer team took on the Fairmont Cardinals they came out with a 4-1 win. Thursday night’s matchup saw a tighter outcome, but the Tigers still were able to prevail, taking home a 3-2 victory over the Cardinals.

Coming together as a team and working together more fluently has been a big key factor to the success that the Tigers have seen on the field this season and coach Matt Versaevel pointed that out as one of the reasons the Tigers found another win against Fairmont.

“The way that our guys worked together and passed the ball brought them to the win tonight,” said Versaevel. “They did a good job doing that. This season they have come together more as a team and it shows how much that care about each other on the field.”

It was anybody’s game and the Cardinals and Tigers had to fight all the way until the end to determine the winner. Marshall knew exactly what they wanted when they used their offensive strengths to score the first goal of the night from Mookae Stee. With 26:57 remaining on the clock the Tigers held a 1-0 lead for a majority of the first half until Fairmont came from behind and got a big offensive opportunity with a penalty kick.

Kaleb Hoye found success and that tied up the game at 1-1 with 17:38 remaining in the half. Marshall and Fairmont continued to fight for the next goal but it ended in back-and-forth effort from both teams and ending the first half with a 1-1 tie.

Going into the second half the Tigers needed to find a second gear in order to earn the win over the Cardinals. That started with a second Tiger goal from Eli Salisbury that brought Marshall up 2-1. The Cardinals fought back hard to the Tigers taking the lead back and took every shot that they could find but Marshall found their way to another goal from Jonathan Alvarez that brought the Tigers to a 3-1 lead with under 10 minutes remaining on the clock. Fairmont kept the energy up and that rewarded them with one more goal with 7:16 left in the game to close the gap to 3-2. The Cardinals couldn’t find any more chances to score a goal, and Marshall would hang on to win by one.

Going into their next game on the road Versaevel wants the team to be able to move the ball more and not let the easy passes get away from them.

“Biggest thing we can do going forward is look to step to the ball more and make sure that they don’t cross the ball,” said Versaevel. “Working the ball down the field more. That way they can stop the ball and not allow the other team to progress.”

After another win the Tigers now sit second in the conference with a record of 9-2-1 and will be on the road on Saturday to take on St. Peter.