After a very competitive 80 minutes of changing possession, pushing, shoving, and goal scoring, SLUH ended up stopping Liberty from their state championship run in front of a big crowd at LHS on Saturday. This is the second year in a row the Eagles have lost in the state quarterfinals, following last year’s 2-1 loss against John Burroughs.

Head Coach Tony Luedecke knew that this was going to be a tough game, but still had his hopes for the team.

“I think they’re pretty good. I believe that if we continue to do what we have done all year, we can be successful,” Luedecke said.

For almost the entire first half of the game, the score stayed tied 0-0 until a spot on cross from Dylan Handlan (12) set up a perfect

tapin for Jackson Rocco (11), which gave the Eagles the lead going into halftime. Liberty led SLUH for about 15 minutes into the second half until the Billikens responded on a breakaway to make the score equal at 1.

Five minutes later the Billikens scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal to take the lead 2-1 and ultimately bring the Eagles state run to an end.

Senior Dylan Handlan thinks his team performed amazing, not just in that game, but throughout the entire season.

“I think the team highly exceeded the expectations going into the season, especially after the season we had last year,” Handlan said. “I felt that our team chemistry was at an all-time high, which allowed us to not only work the ball well, but score goals and ultimately win a lot of important games.”

Even though the Eagles had home field advantage, both school’s had a big student section turnout, which gave the big game a professional atmosphere. Signs, chants, and cheers reigned down from both sides of the field pumping up the players giving them a fantastic experience.

LIBERTY 1, SLUH 2

FIRST HALF

LHS Jackson Rocco 32 minutes in

SECOND HALF

SLU Gabriel Khazen 15 minutes in

SLU Javier Vigil 20 minutes in