Marcus boys soccer coach John Gall might want to write down the halftime speech he gave his team Friday night.

With his squad leading 1-0 over Arlington Sam Houston thanks to an own goal, Gall spoke sternly to his team at halftime about their first half performance.

“I gave them a bit of a roasting at halftime,” Gall said. “Because I felt we should have been a little bit better in the first half. They responded fantastically. That’s what I keep doing to these kids. I keep challenging them and they keep coming up strong.”

Twenty seven seconds into the second half, Marcus’ Randy Wright rose up and headed an Eric Frazier corner kick down into the net.

Marcus would add two additional goals as the Marauders defeated the Texans, 4-0, in a Class 5A Region I area round playoff match at Marcus.

The Marauders (23-3-3) will face Southlake Carroll on Tuesday with a berth in the regional tournament at stake. Marcus is the defending Class 5A state champion. Wright said he took Gall’s talk personally and wanted to go out and make his coach proud of him.

“It was just a great cross from a corner,” Wright said. “They were playing zone and weren’t marking me up. So I just snuck back post and was wide open, and just put it in there.”

“Coach Gall got on to us at halftime,” he said. “We knew we were a better team then them. We just had to come out and show them by putting a few balls in the back of the net.”

Sam Houston had a great opportunity to slice the lead in half when the Texans played a ball into the penalty area just outside the keeper’s box with 22 minutes to play. Several Sam Houston players had chances to get off a shot. None could and Marcus was able to clear the ball.

Less than a minute later, the Marauders put the game out of reach when Frazier blasted a shot in from the right side. Christian Dahlskog setup the goal, which came with 21:49 to play, with a nifty pass.

Fifty one seconds later, Dahlskog pilfered a Sam Houston pass then dribbled his way past several defenders before ripping a shot into the net from 15 yards out.

“Once we cleaned things up in the second half, we were head and shoulders better,” Gall said. “The goal 30 seconds into the second half settled them down.”

In the first halftime, Marcus kept Sam Houston’s defense under constant pressure. The Marauders fired nine shots at the Texans’ goal but none found the mark.

Sam Houston defender Kevin Villareal’s failed header redirected a crossing pass by Marcus’ Phil Charles into the Texans’ net with 10:08 left in the first half. Villareal’s header attempt came from nearly 30 yards out.

“At this stage of the season, there is pressure,” Gall said. “The most important thing was we got some confidence, we built some momentum and we scored a couple of great goals.”