ALTON – Heading into Wednesday night’s regional championship game against the Marquette Explorers, the Columbia Eagles hadn’t lost a game in 53 days.
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After starting the season at 0-2, Columbia has since gone 21-1.
The Eagles' 21st win came in dramatic fashion in a penalty shootout, as they defeated Marquette 2-1 Wednesday night at Public School Stadium.
Columbia was undoubtedly the more offensive team in the game’s opening frame, having multiple corner kicks and long throw-ins that led to dangerous opportunities, but never put one home as the game went to overtime after an 80-minute scoreless draw.
Marquette’s first real shot on goal didn’t come until the 71st minute when Jude Keller made a sliding play to keep the ball in play before taking some touches toward goal and eventually getting his shot saved by Columbia keeper Brady Hemminghaus.
Hemminghaus would prove to be the game’s difference maker.
In the dying seconds of regulation, he had to make a diving save down to his right, stopping the ball at the goal line as the final whistle blew, sending the game to overtime.
“He made some incredible saves,” Columbia head coach Jamey Bridges said about his keeper.
But the best saves were yet to come.
After 80 minutes, two 10-minute overtime periods were set to try and determine a winner before penalty kicks. The Eagles took the lead in the 88th minute when Liam Bivins scored a flick header from one of those imposing long throw-ins.
“I think we were knocking most of the night,” Bridges said. “I think we had 22 throw-ins deep. It’s crazy to me, we just couldn’t finish. To finish one, it was kind of like a relief.”
The Explorers still had 12 or so minutes of game clock to try and find an equalizer. It only took them four.
After the Eagles couldn’t manage to clear the ball from their backfield, the ball bobbled out to TJ Elisaia who wasted no time taking a touch, striking the first-time half-volley shot from about 30 yards out. The shot made its way through traffic and past Hemminghaus in the 92nd minute to tie the game.
So, after 100 minutes played, the game went to a shootout.
Marquette’s Caleb Harties went first and put his attempt high over the crossbar. Columbia’s Elliot Nelson put his PK away to take a 1-0 shootout lead.
Bivins also scored a PK, but the story of the night was Hemminghaus making back-to-back-to-back saves in the shootout. Chris Hankins, Jack Pruitt, and Jude Keller would all have their penalties saved by Hemminghaus as Columbia took the shootout 2-0.
“We practice every day, all season long,” Bridges said about penalty kicks. “We end with PKs just like basketball teams end with free throws. They go through them a lot. To see [Hemminghaus] save three, I’ve never seen it. That, to me, is a result of that preparation.”
On the other side of the coin is a Marquette team that believed it could have won the game also, had it not been for the poor PK shootout performance.
“It’s part of the game. Everybody knows going in that this can be one of the outcomes of the game, going to penalty kicks,” Marquette head coach Brian Hoener said.
“So, the game played out the way we had talked about it for the last couple of days. We knew it was going to be a dogfight, we knew that they are a really, really good team and they come at you in a lot of different ways. They’re very well coached and they’ve won 20 soccer games for a reason.”
“But we also knew that we’re a good soccer team,” Hoener continued. “And we were prepared with our schedule to go punch for punch with them and I thought our guys did a fantastic job of answering the challenge defensively.”
Columbia and Marquette met once earlier in the regular season at Glazebrook Park on October 7. The Eagles won 2-1 after scoring two first-half goals. Hayes Van Breusegen, Columbia’s leading scorer with 29 goals, scored in that game but was kept off of Wednesday’s scoresheet.
The Eagles improve to 21-2-1 and will now play in Saturday’s sectional semifinal game against the hosts Murphysboro at 3 p.m.
Marquette finishes the season at 13-9.
“We knew that they were going to be very direct and come at us,” Hoener said. “We knew there was going to be a lot of throws. We were trying to stay compact defensively and behind the ball to not let Hayes [Van Breusegen] beat us over the top. I thought we executed exactly what we wanted to execute. We put ourselves in a position to win.”
“Unfortunately, when it came down to certain elements of the game: you have to be good at set pieces, you have to be good at defending, you have to be good at attacking; and in the postseason, you have to be good in penalty kicks.”
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