MASCOUTAH – Since getting bumped up to IHSA Class 2A for the 2023-24 school year, Althoff and Triad have met in three straight postseasons.
Triad won 3-1 in the Freeburg Sectional championship in 2023, the last time the Knights beat Althoff. The Crusaders beat Triad 4-2 in last year’s Troy (Triad) Sectional championship and would go on to win the program’s first state title.
Wednesday was the earliest the teams met in the postseason.
They met in the IHSA Class 2A Mascoutah Sectional semifinals, and Althoff came out on top with a commanding 6-0 win. It was the fifth straight win over Triad.
The Crusaders move on to Saturday’s sectional championship, where they’ll take on Chatham Glenwood (17-3-5) at 11 a.m. The Titans beat Waterloo 2-1 after a penalty shootout in the first semifinal.
Because of that shootout, Triad and Althoff’s game, which originally was set for 6:30 p.m., got started fashionably late at 7:11 p.m.
It was a chilly and partially rainy late October night, one that saw the Crusaders get off to a hot start.
In the ninth minute, Althoff won a free kick from about 25 yards out. Senior captain Luke Smith stepped up to the kick and fired a shot right on net that went flying past Triad’s keeper to make it 1-0.
Just under 10 minutes later, Smith stepped up again, this time scoring from the penalty spot in the 18th minute, doubling his team’s lead.
Althoff took that lead into the halftime break.
“We knew it was going to be a task to get two goals to tie it up against a team like Althoff,” Triad head coach Jim Jackson said. “They’re a good team. You can’t make mistakes.”
Less than a minute into the second half, Micah Pitre scored, completely crushing any hopes of a potential Triad comeback.
“We talked about [how] we’ve got to get going in the second half, and they get a goal less than a minute in. That kind of killed everything after that,” Jackson said.
“Obviously, Triad’s a great program, great team this year,” Althoff head coach Skip Birdsong said. “2-0 at half, which we’re thankful to be at, but 2-0 is a dangerous score. The next goal makes or breaks the second half. We were super fortunate to get that one really early in the second half, and I think while they were sort of reeling from that, we just kept on them.”
The Crusaders scored three more times within four minutes to bury Triad.
Tyler Pollock scored at the back post in the 48th minute from Nate Pitre’s low-driven cross. Jack Sorgea scored in the 49th minute from Pollock’s cross. And finally, Pollock grabbed another after following up on a rebound in the 52nd minute.
“You could see the air kind of came out of our kids,” Jackson said about Althoff’s early second-half goal. “You could see our seniors thinking, ‘This is it, we’re done.’”
Althoff scored before Triad could even blink, taking control of the game.
“If it’s 2-1, that’s a very different game than 3-0,” Birdsong said. “You want to get the third one, but you also don’t want to give up the first one. You’re kind of in the middle of you don’t want to press too hard, but you’re not going defensive shell.”
“Really proud of the boys’ effort the whole game, but the start of the second half was outstanding,” Birdsong said.
After a 1-1 tie against Waterloo back on September 9, the Crusaders have won 18 in a row. Two of those wins are via forfeit over Granite City and Metro-East Lutheran. In the other 16 games, Althoff’s defense has only allowed nine goals. Nine of those 16 wins are shutouts.
The Crusaders move on to Saturday’s sectional championship against another familiar opponent, Chatham Glenwood.
Althoff beat the Titans 3-2 after a penalty shootout in last season’s super-sectional played at Illinois College. Glenwood comes into Saturday’s game on a nine-game unbeaten streak.
