Photo by Jeff Helmkamp
Photo by Jeff Helmkamp
Photo by Jeff Helmkamp
BETHALTO — The Waterloo Bulldogs blew past the Civic Memorial Eagles in Wednesday's Mississippi Valley Conference contest at the Bethalto Sports Complex.
Waterloo improved to 6-1-1 overall and 1-0 in the MVC with the 7-0 shutout victory while CM dropped to 5-2 overall and 0-2 in the MVC.
“We knew who they were coming in today and they’re exactly who we thought they were,” Eagles' coach Derek Jarman said. “They’re defending state champs. They started nine seniors, I have three on my roster and that’s not an excuse. But we had four guys that played today that are freshmen or who have not played varsity before this year. They all started today for various reasons. We got a couple of guys banged up and we moved some guys around, just for experience. We knew it would be a game where we had to hold on for dear life.”
Jacoby Robinson, Trevor Panyik and Colin Hall are CM’s three seniors. After winning the first five games of the 2016 campaign, the Eagles lost 5-1 against Highland on Sept. 1 and then suffered the loss to the Bulldogs to open their MVC season.
In the contest against Waterloo, each team moved the ball up and down the field in the first few minutes of play. Mikey Stevenson’s shot just under a minute into the game flew just a few feet to the south of Waterloo’s goal.
“In the first 10 minutes, I thought we played pretty well,” Jarman said. “About as well as we could against that team.”
However, within a minute the Bulldogs started to challenge the Eagles, as they put two shots on goal before Ben Huels’ goal with 29:37 left to play in the first half put Waterloo on the board.
“We really moved the ball well today,” Waterloo coach Chad Holden said. “I know Huels had four goals today, but we were really getting the ball from different directions and coming from all different angles. I’m pleased with the way we played today.”
Huels scored on a shot fired just a few feet from the goal. A little over two minutes later, he scored again on a header to give the Bulldogs a two-goal advantage.
“We came in and had fun today,” Huels said. “The first few minutes were an eye opener. They almost scored. Then we started playing as a team. After we found the first one, they all came in after that.”
Waterloo scored three more times in the first half. Senior Ryan Stites, Huels and Dawson Holden each netted a goal to make the score 5-0.
“We were exposed in all areas today,” Jarman said. “You don’t solve problems without awareness and now we have awareness on what we need to fix in certain areas.”
Early in the second half, Stites and Huels scored to give the Bulldogs a 7-0 lead. The Eagles might have avoided the shutout. Kaleb Bassett’s shot two-minutes into the second half flew just a few feet south of the goal. Panyik’s shot with 34:00 left to play in the second half flew over the top of the goal and a Panyik shot one minute and 40 seconds later was caught by goalkeeper Sam Ward.
The Eagles return to action at 4:30 p.m. today with an away contest against Breese Central. They return to MVC action at 5:30 p.m. Monday when they play host to Triad at the Bethalto Sports Complex and attempt to climb into the conference win column.