Edwardsville-Marquette Catholic battle to 1-1 soccer draw

EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville's soccer team honored 16 seniors Thursday night who have made major contributions to the school's soccer program as part of Senior Night at Tiger Stadium.

The Tigers and Marquette Catholic played to a 1-1 draw in Edwardsville's home regular-season finale, Edwardsville conceding their first goal in some time in the second half, but remaining undefeated on the year; the Tigers took their record to 11-0-5, while the Explorers went to 7-5-2 on the year.

For the Tigers, Thursday's match was about the 16 seniors being honored. “It's a difficult thing,” said Tiger coach Mark Heiderscheid. “The kids, they wanted to make sure that the seniors were out there, and I think that's just a commendable thing, and we have 16 of them. The tough thing is, when you reload in the second half with the senior group again – I asked them, and they said that's what they wanted to do.

“That's a case which it's kind of hard to get into a flow; you've got guys just flipping out there; I still think, for us, for the kids, that means a lot to them. They're willing to go out there and risk a lot of stuff, whether it be a loss, any type of national ranking right now or something like that just to say 'let's let these seniors play.' “

One of those seniors was backup goalkeeper Ian Tegert, who played the first portion of the first half and started the second half before having to come out early after being injured in a goal-mouth collision. “Including our third goalkeeper (Tegert), and he got whacked,” Heiderscheid said. “In the second half, they're willing to do the same thing, even though it's gong to put things in a tight position. That made it almost tougher than anything in terms of rain (the first half was played in steady light showers) or having three guys who were starters sitting out over here.

“But even though we were missing them those guys – we've missed them before – and we're a pretty deep team, that's going to be a thing that makes us so much better when we get to the playoffs to have those guys back.”

The Explorers had been struggling in recent matches – their last win came against Granite City – but Marquette coach Jeremy Sanfillippo hadn't been discouraged. “We haven't been getting the results, but we have been playing well as a team,” Sanfillippo said. “As you know, in soccer, it doesn't always equate to wins. I just them, 'it's going to be a tough game – you're going to have to come and work, you're going to have to do the things in soccer that are smart,' and they did. They played a great first half, I thought, and that was a good counter (on Edwardsville's goal). I told the boys, 'you've got to tip your hat sometimes' because that was a good goal.

“I told them to come back out in the second half and play just as hard and continue to do the things that we were doing, put pressure on their backs, continue to play balls to our forwards and not just dump it.”

Edwardsville's goal came in the 40^th minute – seconds before the halftime whistle – when Hanu Freese came up the middle and found Michael Glisson with a pass that beat Explorer goalkeeper Joe Guehlstof to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead at the break. Marquette countered in the 55^th minute when Zach Weinman accepted a pass and came in to beat Daniel Picchiotti to even the match.

Both teams had their chances the remainder of the match but could not score and the game ended in a drawn result.

The Tigers defeated Marquette 2-0 in the JV curtain-raiser prior to the varsity match. Edwardsville heads across the Mississippi for their next two matches, taking on St. Mary's Saturday afternoon and CBC Wednesday evening before heading to Belleville West to finish out the regular season Oct. 11.

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