Springfield MO Soccer

Historic evening last night, with Springfield Catholic playing their first boys game ever, traveling to in-town rival Greenwood Blue Jays. You couldn’t have picked a better night, a better set of opponents, and in the case of the Fightin’ Irish, a better outcome.

Springfield Catholic - 1
Greenwood Blue Jays - 0

The goal was scored in stoppage time of the first half. It came from a corner kick by freshman Austin Lewis with the assist coming from freshman Adam Entrup. It came against the run of play as Greenwood used their experience in big games to carry the majority of play in the first half.

Greenwood has now gone 1-1 in one goal games against local Class 1 rivals New Covenant Academy and Springfield Catholic, having defeated NCA by a 2-1 score on Tuesday. New Covenant shook off that defeat to beat a strong Willard team by a 1-0 score Thursday. Now Catholic has joined the mix.

As Coach Chris Shull of Greenwood noted after the game - “Congratulations to Catholic for their win. This is very good for soccer in Springfield and we welcome the Irish. And we look forward to our next match with them.”

This is a home and away series, the teams have done a good job of scheduling in that regard. Add it to your list of must see games as this rivalry will have legs. The roar from the crowd when the goal was scored rivaled the Kickapoo vs Glendale derbies I’ve attended.

For the Catholic fans, a reminder that by clicking on the photo above you will be taken to my photo website where you’ll find a number of crowd photos for download as well as the action shots from the game. For some great game shots, stop by Russ Cook’s Flickr site.