Edwardsville captures MVCHA battle with Bethalto 3-1

Jan 3, 2017 8:00 AM Jan 3, 2017 8:03 AM

Listen to the story

EAST ALTON – Bethalto and Edwardsville entered their Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association contest Monday night with much on the line.

Especially considering the logjam atop the league standings with the division into two classes coming after Tuesday's games; the top six teams in the standings will be placed in Class 2A, while the bottom six teams will be in Class 1A to finish out the regular season before the league playoffs get under way in early February.

Get The Latest News!

Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.

Thanks to two third-period goals, the Tigers drew level with O'Fallon into the league lead as Edwardsville scored a key 3-1 win over the Eagles at East Alton Ice Arena; the Tigers went to 11-2-2 on the year for 24 points, tied with the 12-3 Panthers (22 points).

Bethalto fell to 10-4-2 (22 points), a point ahead of Columbia and Freeburg/Waterloo (both teams are at 10-4-1 for 21 points), with Columbia scheduled to play in Granite City Monday night against Highland; the result was unavailable. Collinsville loomed in sixth place at 9-5-1 for 19 points, five points ahead of Belleville at the cutoff line.

“That's one of the best games we've played in awhile,” said Tiger coach Jason Walker. “With the younger team that we have, we've kind of been up and down (this season); as far as a complete game, that's as close as we've been in a long time. We played hard and we had to; that's a good team.

“We want to put ourselves into the best possible position going into the playoffs. We've got six more games left, one more until the split (after the split the teams in each class will play one more game each against the other teams in their class before the playoffs start), so we want to pile up as many wins as we can. The big thing for us was trying to get a full game in and really pick up our pace.”

Walker has felt the Tigers haven't played as well as they are capable of. “We haven't played as well as we can the last couple of weeks,” Walker said. “Tonight was a step in the right direction.”

“We've always known Edwardsville's always got a good program,” said Bethalto coach Derek Kahl, “and to come in tonight – it was a big game for us – and you get 19 shots (on goal), you can't win a lot when you only get 19 shots. We did have some good scoring chances, we just couldn't finish tonight. If we would have won the game tonight, we would have had a chance to finish in second; it's a logjam, there's no doubt about it.

Article continues after sponsor message

Connect with Riverbend Readers - advertise with us today!!

“I'm happy the way the parity is in the league this year. If you look at O'Fallon leading the league with 24 points and the sixth-place team has 19, it's a tight division; anybody can beat anybody any night of the week. It's going to be exciting for people to watch (the run to the finish before the division into Class 1A and 2A), it'll be exciting for the kids to play and the coaches to coach.”

It took a bit, but the Eagles broke out on top when Joe Watson took a pass from Anthony Russo and scored past Tiger goaltender Dylan Twardy with 3:54 left in the first period for a 1-0 Bethalto lead; it held up until there was 3:13 left in the second period when Collin Salter found an open Jordan Crow with a feed, Crow beating Eagle netminder Kyle Wesolowski to tie proceedings up at 1-1.

Edwardsville took control in the third period when Salter gave the Tigers the lead from a William Schuster assist with 11:47 left in the period. Trevor Laub gave Edwardsville a bit of breathing room when he scored from a Mark Tucker assist with 6:33 left for a 3-1 EHS lead. The Eagles had a few good chances to pull to 3-2, but Twardy turned them back each time.

Edwardsville had 41 shots on goal for the night, Wesolowski turning back 38 of them; Bethalto had just 19 shots on goal, Twardy recording 18 saves. Both teams did not have a power-play goal on the night.

Edwardsville finishes out the first part of the season with an 8:45 p.m. game today at EAIA against Highland; Bethalto completed its first part of the regular season Monday.

BELLEVILLE 4, ALTON 0: Three second-period goals sent Belleville to a 4-0 MVCHA win over Alton in the curtain-raiser of Monday's games at East Alton Ice Arena.

The loss dropped the Redbirds to 2-11-2 on the year (six points), ahead of East Alton-Wood River; Bellevlle went to 6-8-2 (14 points) on the year heading into the split into Class 1A and 2A following Tuesday's games.

Garret Dahm and Terrance Purbihat each scored twice for Belleville in the win; Jordon Douglas recorded the shutout for Belleville.

Tonight's MVCHA schedule has East Alton-Wood River playing Granite City at 6:50 p.m. and Collinsville meeting Triad at 8:15 p.m., both at Wilson Park Ice Rink in Granite City, while Freeburg/Waterloo takes on O'Fallon at 7:15 p.m. and Edwardsville meeting Highland at 8:45 p.m.; those games will be at East Alton Ice Arena to close out the first part of the regular season. The schedule following the division into Class 1A and 2A is to be announced by the MVCHA.

Prefer RiverBender on Google