GLEN CARBON – The Father McGivney Griffins hosted another rendition of ‘Friday Night Lights,’ this time, it was their Gateway Metro Conference rivals, Althoff Catholic, who stopped by.
After trailing by a goal in the first 10 minutes, McGivney rallied back to tie the game 2-2 headed into halftime, and a late goal from Sofia Rossetto lifted the Griffins to a 3-2 win.
The result kept Father McGivney undefeated at 17-0 and also made them outright Gateway Metro Conference champions with an 8-0 mark. It was the second straight outright conference title for the Griffins.
“The teams you’ve got to play to be outright, you’ve got to beat quality teams twice,” McGivney head coach Matthew McVicar said. “Althoff is no joke. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
The two teams split the regular season last year, and then it was the Crusaders who ended McGivney’s best-ever campaign in the Belleville (Althoff Catholic) Sectional semifinals via a penalty shootout. The two-seeded Crusaders went on to beat top-seeded Columbia in the sectional final on their way to their third state championship.
Althoff head coach Skip Birdsong knew that it was McGivney’s time.
“They’re undefeated for a reason and will likely end that way, too,” he said. “It’s just a good season for them so far, and they deserved to win tonight, for sure.”
Of course, the two teams could meet again. This year, it would have to be in the sectional championship that Althoff again hosts. McGivney took the No. 1 seed in the top half of the sectional bracket and will begin their postseason on Friday, May 16, against No. 8-seeded Metro-East Lutheran. No. 4 Maryville Christian plays No. 7 Roxana in the other regional semifinal. McGivney hosts said regional with the championship game on Tuesday, May 20 at 6 p.m.
But back to Friday’s match, Althoff got on the board first thanks to Gabby Orlet’s shot that rang off the crossbar and bounced in, leaving McGivney keeper Peyton Ellis not much of a chance to make the save.
It was only the second time this season McGivney has trailed. Civic Memorial owned a 1-0 halftime lead back on April 12.
The Griffins got a fortuitous bounce in the 29th minute when they were awarded a penalty kick after an Althoff handball in the box. Rachel Kretzer stepped up to take and converted to tie the game at 1-1.
McGivney’s leading goal scorer, Natalie Beck, got to work and scored in the 32nd minute from a nice cross from Layla Tobin. It was Beck’s 20th goal of the season.
Not to be outdone was Althoff’s dangerous forward Izzy Dalke. She got the ball right inside the half, beat a couple of defenders along the way, and took a shot from right outside the 18-yard box that hammered the crossbar, but stayed out in the 34th minute.
She did get on the scoresheet not long after. She scored with 40 seconds left in the half to tie the game back up. It was the first time McGivney allowed two goals all season, only the third game they’ve been scored on overall. 14 of McGivney’s 17 wins have been shutouts, outscoring their opponents 76-4.
“It’s a cumulative body of work,” McVicar said. “This isn’t just this year; it’s been the last four years with these seniors. We lost one senior last year, so this team is all intact. We’ve got freshmen that are adding quality minutes to this team; they just believe. They just believe that they can do it, and battles like this just makes it that much more of a statement that, yeah, maybe we can. But we’re going to continue to take it one game at a time and see what happens at the end of the season.”
The all-out-attack style of play from the first half was dialed way back in the second as both teams took on more of a defensive, possession-based shape. It led to few and far between offensive threats for either side.
But the tie was eventually broken when Sofia Rossetto poked one home from a corner kick to make it 3-2 in the 69th minute, preventing overtime or a shootout, as Friday’s conference matchup couldn’t end as a draw.
Althoff’s last defeat was on April 21 at Triad. The Knights were awarded a penalty kick with 2:58 left in the game and went on to win 1-0.
For the defending IHSA Class 1A champs, the ball just isn’t quite bouncing their way.
“It’s kind of been that way all season,” Birdsong said. “The girls have been playing hard, obviously, but sometimes it goes that way. Played really well tonight against a really good team.”
Friday’s win capped off a tough stretch for the Griffins, who beat Waterloo on Monday, Edwardsville on Wednesday, and now Althoff on Friday.
“I don’t know if we planned the schedule this way; we wanted a tougher schedule, but these games are going to make us better going into the playoffs,” McVicar said. “It was a week; Waterloo’s a tough team, of course, Edwardsville’s a tough team, and then Althoff, we knew would be tough. So proud of the girls and the week that we had. I don’t know if you would have asked me at the beginning of the week if we would have went 3-0, but we’re there.”
And now McGivney continues the gauntlet with their remaining four games. They have road games at Columbia (14-2-3) and Gibault (11-6-2) before returning home against Belleville West (12-4-1) and Triad (12-4) to close out the regular season.
