St. Anthony, EHS Claim Soccer Victories

The St. Anthony Bulldogs hosted the Breese Mater Dei Knights in varsity soccer Saturday and captured a 3-2 victory.

"Mater Dei plays an aggressive, forward pushing style of soccer and we play a defensive, progressive style of soccer," said St. Anthony Coach Scott Demers.  "For the first 10 minutes of the match, it didn't look like either team had an advantage. In the 11th minute Mater Dei changed that.  Isaac Gabke placed a shot past our keeper, Zach Tegeler for the first goal of the match. Things would hold throughout the rest of the half with Mater Dei getting four total shots and we got five shots.

"The pressure cooker blew its top in the second half. Mater Dei saw its lead equalled when Benton Hakman placed a corner kick past Mater Dei keeper Nick Kuhl just two minutes into play. We added to our total with a goal from Frank Jansen at the 7:30 minute mark. Then to 'seal the deal' Thomas Stephens headed the ball past a diving MDHS keeper at the 11 minute mark of the second half on a cross from Frank Jansen.

"Mater Dei would not rest and turned up the heat despite their assistant coach getting ejected from the game and four players receiving yellow cards.  Wwith just six minutes left, MDHS forward, Danny Brinker tapped the ball into the our goal after several deflections. Despite tremendous pressure and physical play from the Mater Dei squad, we held on and beat the Mater Dei varsity team for the first time in eight years, 3-2.

"We sacrificed some limbs and luckily, no life in this one. Mater Die is a great team with great coaching. They always come to play hard and we know it will be physical. Our midfielder, Jonas Armberg, had to be helped off of the field after a strike from a MDHS player on the jaw which took him out of the game.  We didn't let the pressure phase our determination to win. We wanted this one. We hae many playrs that rearely see the playing field and it took all of them and the starters to win this one."

The St. Anthony most valuable player was Thomas Stephens for heading in the winning goal. Goals were by Benton Hakman, Frank Jansen and Thomas Stephens, all unassisted. Zach Tegeler had eight saves. St. Anthony improves to 4-1-3 and is back in action today at Charleston.

At Effingham

Effingham edged Mattoon 1-0 in action Saturday. Effingham's goal was scored by Vicente Olmos and assisted by Luis Ramos. Effingham's junior varsity record is now 2-2-1.

"This was by far our best overall team performance of the year," said EHS Coach Aaron Witges. "We finally put a great offensive game and a great defensive game together. In the first half we did an excellent job of maintaining possession of the ball in our offensive half. Unfortunately, we were unable to get on the board in the first. We were able to keep Mattoon off the board in the first half as well.

"You have to be very careful when you play Mattoon because they can strike at any moment. Our defense was up to the challenge. Our defensive back line of Dalton Steele, Andrew Bingham, Jacob Gadberry, and Parth Maheshwari played their tails off all game long.

"We played so well in the first half, I really didn't have a whole lot of things to say to them at half. Just a few minor adjustments here and there. The second half started off with a great deal of pressure from Mattoon, leading to a penalty kick on a hand ball call only a about three and a half minutes into the second half. Chase Harvey took the PK, but Frank Kasdorf was up to the test as Frank dove to his left and made a sprawling save, facing his first PK as a varsity keeper.

"It was ironic, because we have a game we play occasionally in practice where all players get a chance to take PKs and be the keeper defending PKs, and yesterday was the first time we had played that game all year. Frank made it to the final five yesterday in that game. Shortly after Frank's PK save, we countered moving the ball up the field and Dalton Steele from his back line position ended up with the ball about 10 yards outside the 18. Dalton sent a solid low shot towards goal, it made it all the way through the defense and found its way into the net, netting his first goal of his varsity career.

"Following the Effingham goal, Mattoon made a lineup change taking Will Hopkins out of goal and inserting him along with Chase Harvey on the Mattoon front line. With about 20 minutes left, we made a tactical change moving more players back for defense because we knew Mattoon would be gunning for a goal. We were able to fend off multiple high pressure attempts from Mattoon and end up with a 1-0 win.

"This was a great team win. We are now 1-0 in the conference. We only play four conference games, so kicking off the conference schedule with a win is always a key if you want to make a run at the conference championship. Our next contest is against Olney Tuesday at EHS."