MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – In a physical Sun Belt Conference match that saw a combined 17 fouls and five yellow cards, the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers went on the road and played the No. 21 nationally-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers to a 0-0 draw on Friday night in Morgantown, W.Va.
 
With the draw, the Chants moved to 2-2-2 overall and 0-0-1 in Sun Belt Conference play, while the Mountaineers now sit at 2-3-1 overall and 0-0-1 in league action.
 
Coastal's Joey Batrouni was big in goal for the Chants in the draw, as he made six saves in the match where the Mountaineers outshot the Chants 13-5 for the contest and held a 6-2 edge in shots on goal.
 
WVU also held the advantage in corner kicks at 7-2, offsides call at 4-2, and fouls at 10-7. However, the Chants were issued three yellow cards to the Mountaineers' two.
 
The match proved to be physical from the start, as the two teams combined for four fouls over the first seven minutes of the first half.
 
WVU looked to score first, as the Mountaineers saw shots from Sergio Ors Navarro and Ryan Crooks go off target in the eighth and ninth minutes before the Chants' Mamudou Keita posted the visitor's first shot of the match in the 12th minute.
 
Batrouni would make his presence known in the first half, as the sophomore goalkeeper made back-to-back stops on shots from WVU's Ors Navarro (14th minute) and Marcus Caldeira (18th minute) to keep the nationally-ranked Mountaineers from taking an early lead.
 
After another shot by WVU in the 19th minute, the two teams continued to try to feel each other out, as neither team would have another scoring chance until the 33rd minute when Bartouni recorded his third save of the night on a low shot attempt from Yutaro Tsukada.
 
Coastal's Alex Kinateder looked to break the score line and put the Men in Teal in front in the 37th minute but to no avail, as both defenses held strong over the first 45 minutes of play.
 
The Chants came out of the halftime break as the aggressor, picking up an offside call in the 49th minute before Alvaro Garcia-Pascual recorded back-to-back shots over a five-minute stretch with the first attempt forcing a WVU save from Jackson Lee in the 50th minute.
 
WVU went on the attack 10 minutes later, as Batrouni made stops on not one but two Caldeira shots in the 62nd and 64th minutes, respectively, to keep the score at 0-0 with 25 minutes to play.
 
The play on the pitch amped up over the next 20 minutes, as CCU's Maurice Hauser registered two shots, one of which was saved by WVU's Lee in goal in the 73rd minute, and the two teams combined for six fouls and three yellow cards before another Batrouni save in the 87th minute kept the matched tied.
 
With both teams looking for the game-winning goal late in the contest, each team was called offsides while a last-second chance by WVU in the closing seconds of the match sailed over the goal to end the match at a 0-0 stalemate.
 
The Chanticleers will stay on the road to take on another nationally-ranked team in No. 11 Charlotte on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. ET at Transamerica Field in Charlotte, N.C.
 
For complete coverage of CCU Men's Soccer, follow the Chanticleers on social media at @CoastalMSoccer (Twitter), @GoCCUsports (Instagram), and facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at www.GoCCUsports.com.