Triad's Sierra Schlemmer goal in seventh round of shootout tops Edwardsville 1-0
EDWARDSVILLE – When it comes to the season-opening Metro Girls Cup tournament, Triad has seemed to have Edwardsville's number.
Last year, the Knights and Tigers were seemingly heading to a shootout in their semifinal match before Triad's Molly Suess scored in the 87th minute to hand Edwardsville a 2-1 loss.
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Saturday morning, the two teams went at it again in the final of the tournament's Adidas Bracket, and like last season, the match was tight and close.
This time, the two sides wound up going to a penalty-kick shootout after they battled through 80 minutes of regular time and 10 minutes of extra time without a goal being scored.
The shootout even went to sudden-death penalties to decide a winner, but Triad once again prevailed over Edwardsville thanks to a goal from Sierra Schlemmer in the seventh round of the shootout to take a 1-0 win over the Tigers for the tournament title at Tiger Stadium; Triad won the shootout 4-3 to go 3-0-0 on the year while the Tigers fell to 2-1-0.
“I hate PKs,” said Tiger coach Abby Comerford, “but you've got to do them. “We're still working on them and it's nice that we're going to see them again (later in the season) and we can come back from it.
“Triad played a good game, they're a great team, so we've got to move on.”
That the Tigers went 2-1 in the tournament against good sides was encouraging to Comerford. “All the teams that we've played against so far this year have been great,” Comerford said. “We have a tough schedule ahead of us; we've added some people to our schedule, so it's a case that, looking at the regular season, I'm happy with the way the girls played.”
Edwardsville defeated Marquette Catholic in their opener, then Rochester in their semifinal match leading to Saturday's match against the Knights.
If there's one thing Comerford thinks her team needs to work on, it's corner kicks; the Tigers had several kicks throughout the three matches. “We've had a lot of corner kicks all tournament,” Comerford said. “It's something we're going to work on – we've got to finish and capitalize on them.”
“They took it to us for 80 minutes, last year and this year,” said Knight coach Matt Bettlach. “We were fortunate enough to come away with the win both times. They're a heck of a team and they played well for 90 minutes.
“Kudos to our defense and our goaltending; they played really well. They had some dangerous looks and we responded by keeping it out of the back of the net. I don't think we had two shots total on goal. Our kids kept working – we've still got some work to do.”
Neither team could solve Edwardsville goaltender Regan Windau nor Knight goaltender Mercedes King in regular time and extra time, though the Tigers did have a great chance to win it in the dying stages of extra time but were turned back.
Both teams missed their first two chances in the shootout, but the Tigers' Abby Crabtree opened the scoring in PKs, with Triad's Katie Rogers countering with a goal of her own; Paytin Schneider put EHS back on top in the fourth round, but Suess beat Windau to tie things up again through four rounds. Both Taylor Hansen and Samantha Bassler scored in the final round of the shootout to force sudden-death PKs.
In Round 6, Allysiah Belt was turned back by King, but Jordyn Besserman put her shot high to send the shootout to another round. King turned back Ashlin West to start the round, but Schlemmer beat Windau to end the shootout and give the match to Triad.
Edwardsville returns to action at Tiger Stadium with their Southwestern Conference opener against Collinsville at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, then hosts Cor Jesu at 5:30 p.m. March 27; the Knights open Mississippi Valley Conference play at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday at home, then take on Granite City at 5 p.m. Wednesday at GCS Ballpark in Sauget.
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