It doesn’t matter that it was cold and rainy–Saturday night was amazing.
The Saint Louis University men’s soccer team closed out the regular season by drowning the East Carolina Pirates 6-0 in front of more than 2,600 at Robert R. Hermann Stadium.
Each of the six goals scored in the Billikens’ shutout was made by a senior, capping off a memorable senior night.
“This was a great way for our seniors to finish the regular season, but this isn’t their last home game,” coach Dan Donigan said in a release. “This was definitely a momentum builder with the postseason coming up next week.”
The Bills had several good looks early in the game, but could not connect until Nick Gannon sent a long ball to Nick Walls, who put on a spectacular show, holding off an ECU defender and moving into the penalty area to face goalkeeper R.J. Marvinney. Walls beat Marvinney with a 16-yard rocket, just inside the near post.
Despite out-shooting the Pirates 8-4 in the first half, the Billikens struggled to get in sync and establish some kind of rhythm.
At halftime, U.S. soccer legend Brian McBride was honored with the retirement of his jersey, No. 20. McBride is SLU’s all-time leading scorer, with an incredible 72 career goals, 40 career assists and 184 points.
During the ceremony, Director of Athletics Doug Woolard presented McBride with a framed No. 20 jersey and freshman Gavin Minnis gave McBride the No. 20 jersey he had worn all season. McBride proudly put the jersey on and presented Minnis with his new number, 16.
Just a few minutes into the second half, Kevin Wickart started a play that would manifest as one of the most exciting goals of the match. Wickart took a corner kick that sailed long and was headed back to the right post by Mike Kirchoff, where Walls got a foot on the ball with an impressive scissor-kick that landed near Jason Cole, who easily nudged the ball into the goal.
Cole scored the next goal of the night after Cooper McKee breezed a pass to the near side, where Cole rocketed the ball past Marvinney.
Later in the half, Jack Jewsbury made his presence known by trying to connect with Cole on a breakaway, but an ECU defender got tangled up in the play and knocked the ball loose. Jewsbury snatched possession of the ball and sniped a 15- yard blast into the net to make it a 4-0 game.
In the 82nd minute of play, Wickart won a dead ball and found Kirchoff, who headed the ball past Marvinney for his third goal of the season.
Jewsbury closed out the game with seven minutes remaining by ripping a pass from Wickart into the net.
Billiken goalkeeper Martin Hutton only needed to make three saves before being relieved by Jason Cherish, who went untested in his first career appearance.
Following the whitewashing of the Pirates, several Billikens were honored by the league. Cole was named C-USA Player of the Year, marking the third straight year a Billiken has received the honor. Jewsbury, Gannon and Joe Hammes were named to the C-USA All Conference first team.
“This recognition is gratifying for everyone, but our people understand that team accomplishments are far more important than individual accolades, and we still have team goals to reach,” Donigan said in a release. “Jason turned our season around. His speed, aggressiveness and athleticism have been difficult for our opponents to handle.”
The Bills will look to utilize the talent recognized by the league this weekend in the Conference USA Tournament, which is being hosted by SLU.
The tournament begins tonight with Louisville squaring off against University of Alabama-Birmingham, followed by a rumble between Cincinnati and South Florida.
No. 1 seed Marquette will wait for the survivor of the Cincy-USF episode and play a 5:30 p.m. semifinal game tomorrow, while the No. 2 seed Billikens will face the victor of the UL-UAB game in an 8:00 p.m. semifinal engagement tomorrow.
The championship match will be played at 1:00 p.m. Sunday at Hermann Stadium.
