COLLINSVILLE – The Edwardsville High boys soccer team played its first match in a week-and-a-half and kept its momentum gained from the final regular season match to score four goals in the second half to eliminate Alton 5-0 in the IHSA Class 3A regional semifinals Wednesday evening at Kahok Stadium in Collinsville.
The Tigers had won their final regular season match on Oct. 9 at CBC 1-0 and had moved the ball exceptionally well against the Cadets. In the opening playoff match against the Redbirds, Edwardsville kept it momentum going.
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“Even though it was a week off, we moved the ball so well against CBC,” said Edwardsville head coach Mark Heiderscheid, “and it carried over to the regional game. We created so many chances in the first half of the Alton game, but we could finish just one goal. In the second half, we started finishing those chances.”
It turned out to be a tremendous team effort for Edwardsville, with the senior midfielders and strikers in particular providing great efforts.
“It was a team effort,” Heiderscheid said, “but our midfield seniors, Owen Logan, Axton (Anom), Tyler Dacus and Abe (Gianaris) were stellar in building the ball. As wee, the attackers all brought energy.”
Berik Selberg opened the scoring in the first half with a big shot that was buried in the Alton net to make it 1-0, which was also the halftime score.: In the second half, Zach Lane buried a shot early in the second half to double the lead to 2-0, then George Givkas scored the goal of the night, from a distance that found its way to the upper corner of the net to put the Tigers up 3-0, Evan Moore slotted a shot into the bottom of the goal to make it 4-0 and Nik Peterson scored to finish a great run toward the goal that ended up with the ball in the net to make the final 5-0.
Edwardsville meets Collinsville, a winner over Quincy at 5 p.m. Saturday for the regional championship at Collinsville.
Collinsville won 3-1 over Quincy on Thursday in the other regional semifinal game. Trey Peterson had two goals for Collinsville and Adam Reiniger added a goal before he was injured and did not play in the second half. Carter Venvertloh had the lone goal for Quincy.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
