Tigers break loose, defeat St. Mary's 4-0

Brent Feeney, Sports Writer

Oct 1, 2017 8:22 AM

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EDWARDSVILLE – Once Edwardsville's boys soccer team scored, the goals just kept coming.

The Tigers, who had back-to-back scoreless draws against Alton and Marquette Catholic this week, went up against St. Mary's of south St. Louis city at Tiger Stadium Saturday morning and came away with a 4-0 win over the Dragons to take their record to 12-1-3 on the season; the Dragons fell to 3-13 for the year.

The Tigers followed a simple plan that helped them win the game. “Work for the one (goal) and after that, a lot of things happen to be easier,” said Tiger coach Mark Heiderscheid. “It really was the second (goal) before all of a sudden, everything really kind of settled in; we got one early enough – we were working on getting some chances; St. Mary's is very organized, they play the heavy hitters in St. Louis game after game. They're very well-coached, they're very well-instructed; it's not an easy thing to crack.

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“They had a high line there, which is great, because we get to go in there and try to deal with it. Once we got the second one, we were finding some good gaps.”

Heiderscheid gave plenty of credit to senior Jacob Mulvihill; he had an assist on the day but did plenty for the Tigers in many ways. “Mulvihill's kind of had a big year; the guy can't be understated,” Heiderscheid said. “He really, truly has, as a center-mid(fielder), his defending work, his connecting work, he brings leadership – he's really a guy you have to look at and say he's been one of our top three players the whole season. He does so many things so consistently – he's been an outstanding player.”

EHS' first goal came in the 17th minute when Blaine Noll got a feed from Alec Mills and beat Dragon goalkeeper Matthew Brozovich for the Tigers' first goal in more than two matches; Ethan Miracle upped the lead to 2-0 in the 54th minute off a Mulvihill assist before Edwardsville scored twice in the 62nd minute when Cooper Noland scored off a Daniel Reed assist and Reed himself scored from a helper from Nick Noel to close out the scoring.

All three Edwardsville goalkeepers – Andrew Wike, Michael Hoelting and Alex Kehrer – shared in the Tigers' fourth straight clean sheet; that was by design, Heiderscheid said. “In this one, the assessment is that we have CBC next (Wednesday) and Belleville West and then the (IHSA Class 3A) playoffs,” Heiderscheid said. “It was a good time to go ahead and put Wike – the third (keeper) in there – just because if something happens, then all of a sudden, you've got him as your backup; you always have to worry about with keepers, if somebody goes out, are the next one or two guys ready?

“He's played, but he hasn't had enough time, so we get him in there and it's good to go ahead – the idea was to have Michael in and make sure Alex understands what it is to go in the middle of a half.”

The Tigers host CBC at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, then take on Belleville West in their regular-season and Southwestern Conference finale at 5 p.m. Oct. 10 before entering the IHSA Class 3A postseason.

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