Shorthanded Redbirds rally to tie, but Quincy gets late winner

Shorthanded AHS rallies,but Quincy gets late winner

Pete Hayes, phayes@thetelegraph.com

 Published 10:10 pm CDT, Tuesday, October 16, 2018

COLLINSVILLE — An uphill climb became even steeper for Alton in the 70th minute of its Collinsville Class 3A Regional semifinal game against Quincy Tuesday night.

But that’s when the Redbirds dug deeper - but as it turned out, not deep enough.

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Trailing 1-0, Alton’s Braden Schrimpf received a red card in the 70th minute, meaning the Redbirds would play the remaining 10 minutes a player short. But Alton responded by dominating play, tying the game in the 76th minute, only to see Quincy take advantage of a quick-counter attack chance some 60 seconds later.

The result was a 3-2 loss top the Blue Devils at Kahok Stadium in a game Funk said was easily the one of the Redbirds’ “best games of the season.”

“It’s a tough way to see (the season) end,” Funk said. “But the good thing was that we left it all out on the field. Even down a man, we kept coming at them.”

The Redbirds saw their season end at 6-8-6. The victory means that 14-7 Quincy will advance to Saturday’s 3 p.m. regional championship game against host Collinsville. The Kahoks advanced with a 4-0 victory over Granite City in Tuesday’s first semifinal game.

While admitting it was a foul, Funk took issue with the red card issued to Schrimpf.

“I think it was probably a foul,” Funk said, “but it was for a dangerous foul on the last man back. I’m not sure about that part of it.”

While the red card didn’t hurt the Redbirds immediately, it did affect things shortly thereafter.

Playing a man down, the Redbirds picked up their pace even more. Six minutes later, they earned a restart that ended up with the ball in the net and a 1-1 score.

Jake Lombardi sent the ball over the Quincy defense and Sam Stutz timed his leap perfectly and headed the ball into the goal from about eight yards out in the 76th minute.

The Redbirds had new life, but it didn’t last long.

Following the kickoff, Alton quickly resumed possession of the ball from the Blue Devils. But Quincy got it back after a collision that saw Josh Lombardi hit the artificial turf.

“When your central midfielder (Lombardi) gets taken down and you’re playing a many short anyway, that opened up a dangerous situation.”

Dangerous, as in a six-on-three counter attack that Robby Phillips finished off with a goal in the 77th minute. It was Phillips’ 13th goal of the season.

“They had dangerous numbers anyway,” Funk said, “but when you’re a man down, it’s even worse.”

After a scoreless first half, the Redbirds and Blue Devils showed early that the second would be different.

Each team had 15 shots, with Alton outshooting Quincy 7-4 in the second half. There were 27 fouls called in the game, 15 of them against Alton.

The Blue Devils took the lead 45 seconds into the second half.

After the Redbirds cleared a corner kick, the ball found the right foot of Quincy’s Evan Wiegand, whose one-time low liner skipped through and into the goal.

A minute later, the Redbirds came oh, so close to tying it. After earning a Jake Lombardi corner kick following kickoff, Joey Morrissey’s header caromed off the right goal post.

“We thought it was going in,” Funk said. “But it was just an inch wide and hit the instead.

“So in the span of less than two minutes at the start of the half, we had two pretty negative things happen. I think t got us down a little and it took some time to recover, but we did.”