GODFREY — When the Edwardsville softball team huddled up for a matchup of the unbeatens of Southwestern Conference play against Alton, it was a symbolic moment of what the Tigers have been facing since the 2016 season started.

And for those that have the notion that Edwardsville is ready to fall or relinquish its stance as a high barometer of successful softball in the area better think again.

The Tigers laced up their hitting shoes early in this one, plating five runs in the first two innings. They were led by Sarah Hangsleben’s 4-for-4 effort at the plate and using the bend-but-don’t-break pitching of Jordan Garella, who scattered 10 hits in a 9-2 win against the previously unbeaten Redbirds on Tuesday at Alton High School.

With the Tigers (5-2, 2-0) losing 10 seniors from a team that was a super-sectional representative a season ago and three-time defending conference champion, everyone would love nothing more than to slay the giant.

The giant made a clear statement on Tuesday that it isn’t going anywhere; not without a say in the battle.

“They’re tired of everybody saying we’re down, yes; point made,” Edwardsville coach Lori Blade said. “But yes, they are, and you can go to social media and you can go to a lot of things, but hey, keep it up, because it makes my job a little easier.

“That’s why I’m proud of these kids because that’s all they’ve heard for the last three weeks. We take those early two losses and we’re still going to take some losses, but they just need to compete, and if they compete, good things will happen. I’m happy as long as they compete like they did whether we win or lose.”

Edwardsville competed and persevered from start to finish in this one, sending the Redbirds (8-1, 2-1) to their first loss and coach Dan Carter being ejected for the first time in his coaching career in the top of the third.

Carter was tossed by home plate umpire Glenn Vetter after Vetter had apparently become agitated when Redbirds catcher Miranda Hudson had asked on multiple occasions where particular pitches from Brittany Roady were when called balls. Vetter told Carter that he wasn’t happy with Hudson’s “body language” after he ignored her calls and Carter came out to talk to the official about what his catcher was saying so he could remedy the situation. After a few heated exchanges, Carter was ejected.

“When you coach as many games as I have and you haven’t even come close, never even had a bench warning,” said Carter, who will have to sit out Alton’s next game Wednesday at Highland. “I’m not saying I won’t be the first one to voice my opinion, but usually I have a pretty good rapport with the umpires. He did what he thought he needed to do.”

But it was a rough start for Alton, which allowed six unearned runs off three errors, and the Tiger bats punished the mistakes.

Edwardsville scored twice in the first on RBI singles by Rachel Anderson and Allison Loehr. They scored three more times in the second fueled by a fielding error in right field, and consecutive hits by Hayli Green, Anderson and Hangsleben made it 5-0.

The Tigers were jumping on Roady’s pitches early in the count.

“We definitely came in here with an aggressive mentality as a whole, as a team because we were really looking to get on base and get the hits,” said Hangsleben, who had a double, triple and two RBI.

“Good pitchers you have to … but I don’t know if that’s something we said, ‘Hey, you need to jump all over her,’” Blade said. “But they were relaxed, they wanted to be aggressive and I’m just very proud of their effort today.”

Carter added: “They hit the ball well today. They hit the ball up and down the lineup and they earned the win today. I don’t want to take that away from them at all. They’re a good ballclub. I didn’t think we gave ourselves a chance today. I think we could have been a little bit better. We started out flat.”

Anna Burke drove in a run in the fifth, and Taryn Brown’s two-out, two-run single made it 8-0 in the fifth before Alton was able to plate two unearned runs off Garella in the fifth in a sacrifice fly by Tami Wong and RBI single from Tomi Doblo.

Garella (5-0) walked two and struck out nine. She was able to strand 12 Alton baserunners. Roady (8-1) allowed 12 hits, three earned runs, one walk and four strikeouts.

“I am proud that they competed every at-bat today,” Blade said. “It’s a different team that what (we had) a couple weeks ago. Did I expect this outcome? I don’t know, but I did expect our kids to compete and they did.

“We had some key at-bats, we took some extra bases when we needed to, bunts down when we needed to. It was a great complete team win.”

Alton took its first shot at Edwardsville and came up short but won’t back away any time soon.

“I think that we’re good enough to compete with anybody, but you’ve got to play,” Carter said. “You’ve got to come out ready to play and we did not today. … Like I’ve been saying all along, people keep saying they’re down, but they’re at the top of the conference. They’re the only undefeated team in the conference and they are the conference champs. Until somebody knocks them off, they’re the team to beat.”

And the team to beat has one proclamation: keep fueling the fire.

“It doesn’t bother us,” Hangsleben said. “We know what we are capable of doing here and we’re focusing on doing it right. We’re definitely going to make out best effort every game.”

EDWARDSVILLE 9, ALTON 2

Edwardsville 320 031 0 — 9 12 3

Alton 000 020 0 — 2 10 3

Edwardsville (5-2, 2-0) — Green 1-3 RBI, Anderson 2-4 2B RBI-2, Hangsleben 4-4 2B 3B RBI-2, Loehr 1-4 RBI, Lewis 2-3 2B, Brown 2-4 RBI-2. WP-Garella (5-0) IP-7 H-10 R-2 ER-0 BB-2 K-9.

Alton (8-1, 2-1) — Presley 3-3, Hudson 1-4, Wong 1-3 RBI, Dublo 1-3 RBI, Fisher