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EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville's girls soccer team found a way to overcome a bit of adversity Saturday afternoon.

The Tigers had seemingly taken the lead on Belleville West in the Metro Girls Cup Nike Bracket championship match when a Rileigh Kuhns goal was disallowed on an offsides decision by the officials in the 51st minute.

Edwardsville shook off the call and bounced back when Megan Woll found Kuhns in front of the Maroon goal; Kuhns tucked the ball in the back of the net in the 64th minute to give EHS a 1-0 lead; three minutes later, Woll scored what proved to be the clinching goal as Edwardsville defeated their Southwestern Conference rivals 2-0 to claim the bracket title at Edwardsville's Tiger Stadium to go to 3-0-1 on the season; the Maroons dropped to 3-1-0 on the year.

“If anything, it probably pumped her up,” said Tiger coach Abby Federmann of the disallowed Kuhns goal. “Megan made a nice play (on the goal); it's a group effort. (Kuhns, who was named tournament MVP) has scored in every game in this tournament, which is outstanding for a sophomore that hasn't played for us before. I'm proud of her.”

The Maroons and Tigers will be meeting again in Edwardsville March 27 in a SWC match.

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“Belleville West is always a good, competitive team,” Federmann said of the Maroons. “They've got some great speed up top and their center-backs are really strong; we, again, were slow to react through the center, but in the second half, we got it down – we started marking them a little bit better, possessing the ball.

“I think it's going to come, with time and experience, for these girls to get comfortable.”

While the championship was nice, Federmann went into the tournament with the thought of seeing what she has with the Tigers. “I went into this tournament thinking I'm going to use this tournament as more of an opportunity to see what I've got,” Federmann said, “get some people into some different positions – yeah, we want to win a tournament – but also, I've got a lot of new faces; I wanted to see what I have.

“Everybody stepped up, played different roles, different positions; we had a lot of different goal-scorers and assisters. I think it all worked out the way it was supposed to for me, and now, we get to look forward to Incarnate Word and Collinsville next week.”

On Woll's goal - which came in the 67th minute - Ezri Beckmann slipped a feed over to Woll, who fired a shot into the lower left-hand corner to put the match away; the Tiger defense then stepped up and never allowed the Maroons to get a serious chance to score the rest of the way, allowing Regan Windau to get her third clean sheet of the season.

The Tigers will host Incarnate Word – one of the top teams on the Missouri side of the Metro area – at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday at home before heading to Collinsville's Kahok Stadium for a 6:30 p.m. Thursday league opener against the Kahoks.

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