Devin Marshall likes to wear her emotions on her sleeves.
When the senior forward picked up a controversial yellow card with 51 seconds left in ASU’s soccer game against USC Sunday, she was amiable.
“I was pretty frustrated because I personally didn’t think it was yellow-card worthy,” Marshall said. "I was a little frustrated and my whole team was just yelling at me, 'dude just take it out and get a goal.' I looked at the ref and I was like, ‘I’m going to score a goal now.’”
Marshall did just that and scored the game-winning goal with 19 seconds remaining, giving ASU (6-3) a 1-0 victory over USC (5-4-1) to begin conference play.
Sophomore forward Sara Tosti flicked the ball over two USC defenders and found Marshall on the far side of the field. USC’s goalie came out of the box and Marshall slide-kicked the ball into the vacant goal.
“I didn’t even know there was only 20 seconds left on the clock, but I just saw Tosti with the ball and there (were) two defenders in front of her,” Marshall said. “My thought was just to widen out as much as possible ... Tosti played a brilliant ball behind and the keeper, for some reason, decided to come out. Forwards are usually faster than goalkeepers. Luckily I was, and was just able to hit it open frame.”
The exhilarating win for ASU felt like it should have been decided earlier as ASU’s first 15 shots failed to go in, which included at least three that bounced off the post or crossbar.
Coach Kevin Boyd said his team deserved the win and that hard work led to the Sun Devils getting some much-needed luck.
“It was well-earned,”Boyd said. “I think last Friday night we didn’t earn the win because we didn’t get any luck. Luck is something you have to work towards to win, earn through your effort and passion and emotion. Today I thought we earned some luck. We earned the win through that. Not to say that (Marshall’s shot) was lucky but I thought it was a matter of time.”
Before the yellow card was called against Marshall, tension between the officials and ASU was growing. Redshirt freshman midfielder Lucy Lara fell to the ground with 91 seconds left and had to be taken out.
ASU was obviously frustrated something wasn’t called and Boyd yelled some of his displeasure toward the official when he went to check on Lara.
“You don’t want the ref to be the one that’s driving you,” Boyd said. “I think there were frustrations with being held a lot, things like that. At the end of it, the ref is not deciding the game by any means. It was decided by us, we wanted to win plain and simple."
Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @jjanssen11
