EDWARDSVILLE – DeSmet is traditionally one of the top sides in St. Louis-area high school soccer circles.
Edwardsville played a match with the Spartans Monday night knowing that the Tigers would be afforded a stern test.
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Scoring chances came few and far between for both sides, and the match ended in a scoreless draw after 80 minutes, keeping Edwardsville undefeated on the year at 10-0-2, while the Spartans went to 4-2-4 on the season.
Tiger coach Mark Heiderscheid knew that the Spartans were going to give his team a difficult assignment going in. “Their speed and strength on the ball is at such a higher level, the first 10 minutes, we can’t keep pace; we’re on our heels,” Heiderscheid said.
To add to the difficulty of the assignment, senior center-back Matthew Busse was out of the lineup with injury; Blake Conway took his place in the lineup. “Blake did a good job,” Heiderscheid said. “But we've never not started with Busse as a center-back; even if we have him, we were going to be on our heels. We knew that.
“But even without him, the one place on the field – perhaps two – (the Tigers couldn't afford to lose going into the match) is going to be goalkeeper and center-back. To be honest with you, center-back is the worse situation.”
Plus the Tigers had to go up against the Spartans' David Meyerhoff, who Heiderscheid called “the best player I've seen in four years. He's absolutely a gem of a player, a gem of a kid.
“Everything he (Meyerhoff) touched was gold out there,” Heiderscheid said. “I haven't seen a player of his caliber in quite some time. He's simply that good.”
“We found some areas where we could attack,” Spartan coach Josh Klein said. “Credit to that (Edwardsville defense): they stayed pretty compact.”
Both teams did have chances at times during the match; Edwardsville's best chance came in the late second half, but Spartan goalkeeper Connor Range managed to come up big when the Spartans needed him to. Tiger goalkeeper Daniel Picchiotti also had some big stops down the stretch to keep the clean sheet.
In the junior-varsity curtain raiser, Edwardsville came away with a 1-0 win over the Spartans on a Tony Agwuedu goal from Aiden Ranek.
Edwardsville will be off until Saturday morning when Normal Community comes calling to Tiger Stadium for an 11 a.m. match.
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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.
