EDWARDSVILLE – Both Edwardsville and CBC had quality chances throughout the match, and the Tigers came closest to scoring in the dying minutes of the match, but the end result was a 0-0 draw between both sides in Edwardsville’s final regular-season match Saturday morning at Tiger Stadium.

The Tigers and Cadets both played very well on a bright, sunny, but cool day as Edwardsville goes into a 10-day break before starting the IHSA Class 3A playoffs, where they go in as the top seed in their regional tournament beginning Oct. 23. The Tigers will play the winner of a match between Granite City and Waterloo Gibault Catholic.

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“I thought we really created chances,” said Edwardsville coach Mark Heiderscheid. “I thought it was good. Again, going into this one, it’s, for us, a game that we scheduled to try and get value, especially right as we’re heading into the playoffs. Obviously, CBC is going to be, likely, the most quality opponent that we play, up until we get very deep into the playoffs. I mean, you just don’t see a side like that in Southern Illinois; they’re just a little more physical, they’ve got their ability, their speed on the ball is good, their technical basis is very good. And yet, they still played a lot of deep balls in, they’re playing some diagonal balls, their keeper was hitting the ball about 75 yards. So I think that was great for us to see. That said, I was extremely happy with the way our kids moved the ball, I thought we were very effective in keeping it, I thought our time of possession was quite good, I thought that our back line held up well under stress, I thought that our movement was good, and we created a lot of chances. And so, we had the one, (Brennan) Weller hits that, the keeper, right time, right place, happens to be there because it almost hit him as soon as it left Weller’s foot. We had a couple of other ones that were very tight.

“I think, towards the end, we were on them quite a bit,” Heiderscheid continued, “and I thought for sure that one was in. I’m still blown away that somehow, he reaches, and he’s a six-foot, five or six kid, and he somehow reaches, the ball’s behind their whole defense, got two guys running on it. Somehow, he manages to grab it from reaching behind, and he’s full prone and gets it before it crosses the line. But I think though, that’s OK, because, really, those are things we can’t control, when a keeper’s doing such an effective job of blocking shots. But what we can do is, we could control the fact that we created a lot of chances, had some very good shots on goal. And so, really, our buildup was good, and, like I said, we did create, we just had a guy who really was hot as a keeper, and that’s OK because, at the end, that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that we play very effectively, and we were good today.”

Heiderscheid felt that the draw was a very fair result for both teams.

“Yeah, I think so,” Heiderscheid said. “And I’m OK with that. I mean, what we wouldn’t want is all of a sudden, we’re down, we’re knocking on the goal, all of a sudden, the ball just comes reigning down the field; we’ve seen that too many times before, where we’re pressing, pressing, and some team just gets lucky by kicking it down the field and scoring, But that happens in soccer all too often. And so, I think in this case, CBC’s very, very good. Terry Michler is the winningest coach in the nation for a reason. You know, even after the game, I would ask him ‘hey, is there anything that you saw’ always, because I’m very old, very veteran around here, but he out veterans me. So I will take his advice. I always have, because he’s a guy that I respect, and if he has anything that he sees, insights, I always want to pick his brain and see what he thinks.”

It’s a young team the Cadets have this season, after losing many seniors from a Missouri state championship team from 2018, but CBC has been very competitive this year, and Michler was very happy with his side’s effort also.

“You know what? I was very satisfied with our kids’ effort,” Michler said. “Before the game started, I looked through the lineup, and Edwardsville had 16 seniors. I think they started nine seniors. I’ve got nine sophomores, we started four sophomores, and played six sophomores today. And we’ve got a very inexperienced team, very few guys carried over from last year; we lost a lot of seniors from last year. At the end of the day, we had our chances, they had their chances. Our goalie came up really big, which helped us out. So I was very satisfied in the overall performance, very satisfied.”

The Cadets traditionally play a very tough schedule, going against some of the St. Louis-area’s best competition, and Michler felt that his young team has held their own.

“I told them after the game that we really haven’t played a soft team all year,” Michler said. “We’re 8-8-2, right down the middle. But we’ve played all the ranked teams, all the quality teams, and we’re holding our own. We’re losing by one goal most of the time, and that’s because we’re not scoring goals. So, they’ve come quite a ways. I’ll give you an example: We lost to St. Louis U. High in the second week of September 3-0 in our own tournament. This past week, Tuesday, we tied them 0-0 at their place, then lost in (penalty kicks). So that’s a pretty big improvement, it’s quite an improvement.”

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The Cadets are building for the future while concentrating on the here and now, and Michler is very optimistic about how things will turn out.

“Well, for sure,” Michler said. “I’ve got nine sophomores, so I’m only two players short of a first-team right now. Then, I’ve got about six or seven juniors, so you know what? This team is building for the future, but we’re not giving up this year, either.”

The two sides played evenly for the opening 10 minutes before Cooper Nolan had the first big chance, going right through after taking a pass, but Cadet goalie Max Heuer was there to make the save. Four minutes later, a Jakob Doyle attempt just went past the far post wide. Both sides continued to have good chances, but both Heuer and Tiger goalie Tyler Frolik were there to stop the opportunities as the half ended goalless.

The Tigers had the first good opportunities in the second half, but Logan Loftus, Nolan, and Weller twice were thwarted by Heuer and the Cadet back line. Frolik stopped a good crossing attempt by CBC in the 49th minute, and two minutes later, Riley Dubbs got another good cross in, but Frolik was equal to the challenge to keep the match scoreless. In the 59th minute, off a Tiger free-kick from distance, Andrew Mills got a good cross into Weller, but Heuer made a big save off Weller’s shot to keep things tied.

The urgency of both teams increased as the second half went on, and in the 73rd minute came the best chance to score. Off a brilliant set of passes, Weller took a shot that got past Heuer, who was off his line, and the Cadet defense, and was rolling toward the goal when Heuer somehow dived back and was able to cover the ball before a pair of Edwardsville players were able to finish. Nolan had one last chance in the 76th minute, but Heuer made the save as the game ended in a goalless draw.

The Cadets are now 8-8-2 and have four games remaining before heading into the Missouri districts, and Michler is feeling very happy with how things are going for his team heading into the stretch run.

“Well, you know what? I told them last Saturday, a week ago, we had practice, and we had three games this week,” Michler said, “four games next week, and two weeks of one game each, and then, we go to districts. We’re .500 right now. Let’s start fresh, second half of the year, and let’s build it up. So, we got three games this week, we won one, lost one, tied one, lost the one on penalty kicks. So, for the three games so far, I told them after the game, our game performances have been really, really good. Results can be a little better, but the performances are good. If we keep playing this way, we’ll win more games than we lose, so I’m happy. I’m satisfied.”

Michler is very optimistic about the upcoming postseason as well.

“Yeah, I think so,” Michler said. “Anything can happen at the end of the year, and we traditionally are the more experienced team at the end of the year, so I’m going to play off of that. Get them ready, get them close, see if they can get over the hump and win a few games.”

The Tigers end the regular season 16-4-1 and will have plenty of time to prepare for the upcoming Illinois playoffs. The layoff will be good for Edwardsville to rest and get healthy for the postseason.

“Really, we’re good,” Heiderscheid said. “So, we’re very lucky in that we don’t have anything, knock on wood. But I do think it’s nice to have that week-and-a-half in training. We’re kind of like a professional team in that regard; all of a sudden, you get to go ahead and train for a while before you step on a pitch, and I think that gives us a lot of time to just have control of situations, it gives us a lot of time to practice and work on shots and finishing, even though that wasn’t the issue here, it gives us time to work on set pieces, and really, during that stage, you’re more likely to keep yourself fresh, keep yourself healthy. And so, we’re really in a good spot. We’ve had a successful season, we’re the top seed by a long shot, we’re a team that I think is playing very well. Now having said all that, like I was telling coach Michler, you know, for here, there’s really no easy game when it comes to what they say are districts; for us, it’s called regionals. But just no easy games.

“If we look, and we play a team, for example, the team in theory who’s supposed to win it is Gibault,” Heiderscheid continued. “You know what they’ll make it difficult for us. If we’re successful there, the next team is a team that’s going to give us difficulty. And we haven’t even seen Quincy yet, and they’re an opponent that has the highest next seed that would be in our bracket. And yet, I look at them every year, it’s like they’re a challenge. Notoriously, for a while, they were the second-best team behind us in the playoffs, so it was always a toss-up between, usually, between Quincy and O’Fallon, as far as the top ones for so many years. So, that’s going to be difficult. If you look at recent results, Collinsville has been very good for them, if you look at O’Fallon, they’ve had a very good season. So, either way, at best, maybe you get one game that is something you think will be not super difficult, but I don’t even know if that occurs. And after that, every game is tough. Yeah, we’re the team that has the high seed, but it’s going to be challenging.”Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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Dan Brannan also contributed to this story

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