GRANITE CITY – The Belleville West Maroons earned the No. 1 seed in their sub-sectional after a 15-5 regular season and an impressive 9-1 record in the Southwestern Conference.
After defeating Alton 7-0 back on Tuesday, it set up a regional final with Collinsville at Granite City High School’s Gene Baker Field Friday evening.
It was a game that the Maroons dominated offensively early on, yet the game still went into halftime with a scoreless tie. But three second-half goals would propel Belleville West to a 3-0 win to secure its first regional title since 2007.
The Maroons had five or so clear-cut opportunities to put one on the board in the first 20 minutes, but nothing went. It didn’t bother longtime West head coach Jason Mathenia.
“You have to always think about that in postseason play,” he said regarding the scoreless first half. “I think any coach that’s been around for any amount of time knows that anything can happen any given night, especially when you get into postseason.”
West hit the woodwork in the 13th minute followed by an audacious effort from Jerard Perez from 30 yards out that drilled the crossbar in the 35th minute. Add in some quality saves from Collinsville’s keeper Braden Henson, and it seemed troubling for the Maroons.
“We were very pleased with our performance in the first half,” Mathenia said. “We felt like it was just going to take one and then the others may come from that. We had so many opportunities in the first half. Credit to their keeper; he made some phenomenal saves in the first half.”
After a stressful first 40 minutes, the goals did eventually come through.
In the 56th minute, a ball was played across the six-yard box, making its way through traffic until it found Will Rockwell at the back post who tapped it in rather easily.
“They’ve scored a lot of goals on the back post, playing balls across,” Collinsville head coach Robert Lugge said about the Maroons.
“Somehow, they did it and it got through three of our guys. At that point, you’ve got to push the game a little bit. You can’t just sit back when you have to score goals. When you get stretched out against them, they just have the athleticism to put you under.”
That’s exactly what West did.
After the opening goal, the game turned into a foot race, one that the Maroons were winning. It led to a second goal five minutes later when Sam Gebhart wouldn’t stay down.
He had the ball at the edge of the 18-yard box and was brought down by Henson. It was a clean tackle, but Henson didn’t clear the ball, allowing Gebhart to bounce back up, quickly regain control of the ball, and put it into an empty net in the 61st minute, doubling the lead.
The dagger came in the 76th minute when Gebhart scored off of a half breakaway, slotting it bottom left, giving Henson no chance of making a save.
Gebhart and Rockwell, along with Braden Missey have combined for 51 goals now this season. The three-headed monster that is Belleville West’s attacking unit stepped up in the regional final.
“We’re fortunate with what we got. We’re very fortunate by all means,” Mathenia said. “If any one of those guys gets double-marked, triple-teamed, whatever you want to call it, then there’s two other options. Two other options that are just as threatening as the one.”
Adam Bilzing added 10 goals this season also while Perez has been racking up assists with 12.
Meanwhile, in net, it was a big night for Jacob Mathenia, the senior goalkeeper for West. After the 3-0 win, he tied the all-time record for most shutouts in a season with 11. He currently shares the record with Belleville West assistant coach Brad Dietrich who set it back in 2001.
Collinsville doesn’t typically struggle to score goals, but Friday was the fourth time this season they’ve been shutout, as the Kahoks close the book on a 9-10-1 season.
“Obviously, they had more chances than we did, but we were still creating opportunities,” Lugge said. “It’s the inability to find that final pass or get that last touch into the goal. We played well enough to keep the game close, even win the game, it just didn’t go our way.”
The Kahoks were the No. 5 seed in the top half of the Alton Sectional bracket, which sees all the SWC schools as well as Quincy and Springfield Southeast.
“Anybody in our conference could be a one seed at any given moment,” Lugge said. “They’ve had a great year; they deserve it, and we wish them luck moving forward.”
Moving forward is a sectional semifinal on Tuesday, October 29 against the winner between No. 2 seeded O’Fallon and No. 3 Edwardsville.
The sectional semifinal game will be played at Alton’s Public School Stadium at 5 p.m.
The Maroons beat both the Tigers and Panthers twice this season, with their lone SWC loss ironically to Collinsville back on September 26, 3-2.
That’s why it doesn’t really matter to Mathenia who his team sees next. He heads into it optimistic regardless.
“I really don’t care who we play Tuesday to be quite honest, and that’s no disrespect because they’re both going to be great teams,” he said. “I am very confident with our guys and the level we’re playing.”
