BETHALTO – After a season beyond expectations, the Bethalto High School boys soccer team’s season has come to an end. The Eagles were defeated by the Triad Knights (20-3) in the Class 2A Sectional Finals Friday night at Hauser Field. CM ends their long season with a 24-5 record.
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When Triad comes at you, they come in waves. And once they get going, they are hard to stop.
That’s why when they took the lead in the 10th minute, the Knights never looked back. They scored in the 21st, 26th, and 36th minutes to make it 4-0 before halftime.
Goals came from Jake Stewart and Gibson Hunt who each had one while Wyatt Sutter snagged the other two. He’s now got 16 goals on the season.
Coming back from the halftime break CM didn’t give up one bit. Brayden Zyung hit the crossbar from a direct freekick from about 30 yards out in the 51st minute. The Eagles had some more chances but couldn’t find the back of the net.
Triad did something impressive defensively as well. CM isn’t a team that gets shut out often and that’s because of Bryce Davis. He’s the leading scorer in the entire St. Louis region with 61 goals this season.
The Knights did a great job defending him and occasionally double-teaming him to make sure he never got through.
After Triad took the lead they sunk back a little bit defensively. They put a lot of guys behind the ball and always kept the Eagles in front of them. They were able to preserve their 10th shutout of the season.
CM head coach had nothing but respect for Triad postgame going as far as calling them a “soccer factory.”
“They earned it. If they play like that, nobody’s beating them,” Jarman said. “We got outworked and outplayed.”
Jarman was still proud of his team’s effort against Triad and all season long. He mentioned that his team has some great senior leadership and got a little emotional when talking about this season’s graduating class.
“I’m disappointed for our kids. These kids have been working their butts off for all four years,” he said.
Triad will go on to play the winner between No. 3 Rochester and No. 1 Chatham Glenwood on Tuesday, November 1st at 6 p.m. in Rochester. They are one win away from getting back to state.
