FREEBURG — The road to 5-0 wound its way through a wind tunnel in Freeburg Tuesday – and the Alton Redbirds indeed remained undefeated.

The Redbirds survived winds of up to 25 miles per hour and knocked off Freeburg for the second time this season, 2-0, in a nonconference girls soccer game.

“The winds were brutal,” Alton first-year coach Jeff Hayes said. “It affected a lot of the game and how it was played.”

The wind was so strong at times that it blew the ball away from the dead-ball spot on free kicks on Freeburg High School’s artificial turf.

In a week’s time, the Redbirds have already won more games than they did all of last season, when they had just four victories. In the process, they captured the championship of the Metro Cup tournament Nike Bracket and added a non-conference win over Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin.

“Our girls are playing with a hard-nosed attitude,” Hayes said. “They are attacking, they’re not getting beat to 50-50 balls – they just aren’t backing down.”

The Redbirds defeated Freeburg 2-1 in last week’s season opener in the Metro Cup at Columbia. While Tuesday’s second meeting may appear to have been equally as close, it actually wasn’t. The high winds served to level the playing field.

Alton outshot Freeburg 18-2.

“I thought we controlled the game and we maintained possession,” Hayes said. “But we seemed to be one touch away from scoring a lot of the time.”

Despite their domination of ball possession and shots, the Redbirds found themselves scoreless with Freeburg midway through the second half.

That’s when freshman Alaina Nasello took charge. She picked up the ball about 35 yards out, beat three Freeburg defenders and buried a left-footed shot to the far post with 18:31 remaining.

Two minutes later, Lexi Schrimpf scored on a start from about 40 yards out. It was the junior defender’s third goal of the season.

“Both (Schriumpof and Nasello) had nice goals,”Hayes said. “(Nasello) isn’t playing like a freshman. She’s not timid at all and she’s showing it. She might get knocked around some, but she gets up and plays even harder.”

Nasello, the daughter of former AHS boys and girls soccer coach Greg Nasello and younger sister of AHS boys soccer standout CJ Nasello, has already scored five goals.

“Some of the teams don’t know her yet,” Hayes said, “but a lot of the players do from her playing (St. Louis Scott Gallagher) club soccer. She’s becoming more of a known quantity every game.”

Hayes admitted getting the team’s fifth victory in its fifth game of the season was satisfying. But he’s aware that with three 2-1 victories as well as a 2-0 decision, there remains much work to get after – and it starts Wednesday against rival Marquette Catholic High in a 6:30 p.m. showdown at Gordon Moore Park.

“The Marquette game is a big one for so early in the season,” Hayes said. “It’s important for a lot of reasons. First, Marquette is an excellent team and we’ll have our hands full for sure. But I also know how important it is to the girls on both teams.”

Marquette is 0-3, with all three losses in the Metro Cup Adidas Bracket. The Explorers lost top Triad 2-1 in overtime and lost to O’Fallon 2-1. Their other loss was 4-1 to Springfield.

“Marquette could easily be 2-1. They are a quality team. They have some extremely dangerous players and they’re well-coached.

“I’ve coached and played in a lot of rivalry games,” he said.”When I was an assistant the last two years at Alton, I saw how important this game is to the players.

“I know it sounds trite,” said Hayes, who prepped at Granite City High before moving on to Lewis and Clark Community College, “but you really can throw any records out the window when rivals like this meet.

“I know it’ll be a hard game to play and a hard game to coach, but these games are part of what’s so great about highschool soccer.”

Reach Pete Hayes at 463-2500 or Twitter @HayeserPete