BELLEVILLE — Two of the area's better boys soccer teams squared off Wednesday night at Althoff High.

The host Crusaders, who return a number of players from last year's Illinois Class 2A state championship squad, won the early-season match 1-0 over De Smet, which finished as Missouri Class 4 runner-up a year ago.

But the game, which featured a bunch of yellow cards and a red-card ejection on each side, was anything but a masterpiece.

"I can't remember being part of a game with so many cards,'' Althoff coach Skip Birdsong said. "De Smet's an excellent team, a team that's going to win a lot of games. I know their history and all the state titles and I know that beating a team like that means a lot to our kids and to our program."

De Smet coach Josh Klein and his Spartans came away frustr

See Full Page