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EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville senior Bayne Noll turned out to be the difference for the Tigers Tuesday afternoon.
Noll scored twice for the Tigers as they eliminated Granite City 2-0 at Tiger Stadium in an IHSA Class 3A Edwardsville Regional semifinal match; EHS will meet Belleville West, 3-2 winners in a shootout over O'Fallon Tuesday night, at 10 a.m. Saturday in the regional final for the right to advance to next week's Rock Island Sectional.
The Tigers advanced to Saturday's match at 15-1-3, while the Warriors were eliminated at 2-15-1.
“At this point, it's about result – always – and move on,” said Tiger coach Mark Heiderscheid about how things turned out. “You know what, you won the game – that's good. If it's because of (penalty kicks), that's a nerve-racking situation, but even at two – the hope is that we can score more than two – but that's all right.
“We moved the ball around well – obviously, we kept it at a pretty slow pace – we were trying to go ahead and make sure we eliminated anything that could be a counter (attack), which we mostly did, and when you think about how many times the ball got across the field, that wasn't much, so you're doing your job.”
“Obviously, they're one of the best teams in the state,” said Warrior coach Ryan Reeves. “We kind of had our World Cup, so to say, on Saturday against Alton (when GCHS eliminated the Redbirds in a shootout) – probably a team we match up a little better against – and we were limited on how many guys we could play. From the get-go, I could tell in warmups and from the start of the game, we didn't have the legs to compete after going 100 minutes (in the shootout win Saturday).
“We knew going up against them was going to be very difficult. The score felt a lot worse than what the score was – we never had the ball – but I'm proud of my guys; we made progress late in the season, but unfortunately, we couldn't put forth a good performance today in front of all those people. I wish we would have been a little more competitive, but it just wasn't our day today.”
Noll's first goal came early, in the 14th minute when he accepted a feed from Alec Mills and put a shot past Warrior goalkeeper Ymaury Escarene to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead, then Noll upped the lead to 2-0 in the 44th minute off an assist from Kyle Wright; it was all what the Tigers really needed to advance.
Saturday's final against the Maroons may well likely be a very difficult match. “It's going to be real difficult,” Heiderscheid said before the Panther-Maroon match. “Both these teams made it made it a tussle for us; I just think both these teams will end up being as difficult an opponent as what we hit all the way to the semifinals. Obviously Quincy and Collinsville are very good, same thing with Springfield – but both teams can match up with anybody in the whole sectional.”
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Feeney, 56, is a native of Granite City and graduated from Granite City South in 1978. He was a part-time writer for the old Granite City Journal from 1979-84 before attending Eastern Illinois University in Charleston,
from which he earned his BA in journalism in 1988. He has worked for newspapers in Sikeston, Mo., Rocky Mount, N.C., Seneca, S.C. and in Charleston-Mattoon. He also worked for the old St. Clair County Suburban
Journals.
