Darius Marshall of the Herd finishes his sophomore season with 1,095 yards rushing, but Marshall loses late, 38-35, to West Division champs from Tulsa.  Earlier in the day, MU basketball beat ODU, 68-64.   photo by Greg Perry, Herd Insider

It was a doubleheader for Thundering Herd fans on Saturday in Huntington as the Marshall men would face the Old Dominion Monarchs at 11:30 a.m. in the Cam Henderson Center, followed by Marshall's final football game of 2008 against the high-flying offense of the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes on Senior Day at the Joan C. Edwards Stadium. Both games came down to late plays, but basketball made 5-of-6 free throws in the final 30 seconds to win, 68-64, and improve to 2-3.

Football would play so much better than any of the 21,571 expected. The Herd was a 14-point underdog to the TU team that was averaging 50 points and nearly 600 yards per game on offense on its way to a 9-2 mark coming into Huntington. With backup quarterback Brian Anderson getting the start, the Herd gave as good as it got but saw the win get away on a late Tulsa field goal in a 38-35 loss to the West Division champs.

Marshall football finished the year 4-8 on the season, 3-5 in Conference USA. The disappointing part was Marshall was 3-1 to start the season, 2-0 in league play, but lost by three points to both Tulsa, the West champ, and to East Carolina in overtime by three, the East Division champion. Marshall also had a two-point loss at UAB along with a disappointing home loss to UCF that denied the Herd at least a .500 season and a chance at bowl eligibility.

Anderson, starting for the injured Mark Cann, passed for 14-of-19 passing, 177 yards and three touchdowns. Two of those passes went to senior Darius Passmore, who led MU with six catches for 73 yards including a 42-yard touchdown pass in the back of the end zone.

Marshall was tied with TU at 7-7 at the end of the first quarter, 21-21 at half and 35-35 at the end of three quarters. After 70 points in three quarters, however, only three points were scored in the fourth. Tulsa's Jarod Tracy, who missed an earlier field goal attempt, nailed a 22-yard effort with 3:42 left to give the Hurricane the three-point lead.

Marshall would have one more chance, with a fourth and one at midfield with just under two minutes remaining in the game. Senior Chubb Small, who earlier scored on a career best 69-yard touchdown run, was stacked up on the fourth down try and came up about a foot short, effectively ending Marshall's last chance at an upset. Tulsa's win, plus Rice knocking off Houston, gave the Golden Hurricane the West title and a 10-2 mark overall, 7-1 in C-USA. They will play East Carolina next Saturday in the C-USA championship game.

"Our guys played very hard tonight," said head coach Mark Snyder, "but we came up three points short. Brian sparked us tonight, he really played well. He took shots when they gave them to him and I thought he did really well.

"I'm very proud of these seniors," Snyder said of his 14 graduating players. "They aren't big in numbers but big in heart. They never let this team quit." Besides Passmore and Small, other seniors were Maurice Kitchens (16 tackles on the evening), C.J. Spillman, Ian Hoskins, Cody Tominack (who played at Wheeling Park and WVU), Joe Bragg (from Morgantown), Aaron Johnson, Phillip Gamble, E.J. Wynn, Emmanuel Spann, Matt Altobello (from Keyser, W.Va.), Brian Leggett and Matt Parkhurst.

Terrell Edwards had a 53-yard touchdown for the Herd, a career best for the freshman. Courtney Edmonson caught a touchdown to start the Herd's scoring in the first quarter, a 19-yard pass from Anderson. Passmore also caught a 12-yard touchdown in the third quarter.

In basketball, the Herd held on late by hitting free throws against a ODU team that shot 68 percent in the second half, 17-of-25, and 57 percent for the game on 27-of-47. Marshall shot well itself, 50 percent (27-of-54) and won many of the hustle stats despite playing short-handed in the game.

Sophomore Brandon Powell was booted off the team on Thursday for violations of team rules. Chris Lutz and Dago Pena was injured and unable to dress, while Tyler Wilkerson was limited on minutes with the flu.

But Marshall had other players step up, like sophomore big men Tirrell Baines and Marcus Goode. Baines, who was named to the All-C-USA Freshman team last year, led the Herd with 15 points and nine rebounds - six of which came on the offensive glass.

Goode, who sat last year with academic problems, hit his first five shots on the way to 11 points and eight rebounds. Old Dominion had no answer for the 6-foot-10, 300-pound crowd favorite, who shows a  soft shooting touch from two to 12 feet away.

Freshman combo guard Shaquille Johnson scored in double-figures for the fifth time in five games, scoring ten for the Herd. Fellow frosh and point guard Damier Pitts, as well as junior Darryl Merthie, each had seven assists with just one turnover each. Marshall had only 12 turnovers, while causing 17 for ODU. Pitts added three steals while Johnson had two steals and two assists.

Senior Markel Humphrey scored nine points, had three rebounds, two assists and a block. Goode added an assist, steal and block to his 11-and-8 day. Marshall improved to 2-3, and head coach Donnie Jones commented after the game the Herd learned some lessons in three losses in Daytona last weekend in the Glenn Wilkes Classic.

"I'm as proud of this win as any win that I've been apart of since I've been here, just because of the adversity this basketball team went through this past week, how they came back and practiced and how they came out and found a way against a really good basketball team in Old Dominion to get a victory," said Jones. "I don't know if we win tonight if we didn't go through what we did last weekend (in Daytona)."

MU lost by five, six and four to Morgan State, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Ole Miss last week after opening the season with a rout of NAIA in-state opponent WVU Tech, also a game in the Classic.

Basketball will have a traditional double-dip on Tuesday. The 4-1 MU women face UT-Arlington at  4 p.m., heard on ESPN 930 AM (and Charleston's ESPN 1490 AM from 5-6 p.m.). The Marshall men face former Southern Conference rival East Tennessee State at 7:30 p.m. later on Tues., Dec. 2. The Bucs are 3-3 after at loss at Bradley on Saturday.