Dressed head to toe in white-out clothes, hundreds of cheering students watched the EHS football team face off against a difficult opponent last Friday.  The Tigers suffered a 44-27 loss to the Christian Brothers College High School (CBC) Cadets.

CBC came into the game as the top-ranked team in the state of Missouri, as well as the two-time Class 6 state champions, according to the Edwardsville Intelligencer.  Senior Joshua Klein took this into consideration when establishing his mindset for the game.

“They are a really good team, and we were going to need to play great in all three phases of the game [offense, defense, and special teams] in order to beat them,” Klein said.

Despite the tough loss, junior Justin Johnson Jr. had a career high of four touchdowns.  He said he was very focused going into the game.

“I was determined to do whatever I had to do to win,” he said.  “I was ready to play to the best of my ability.”

Although Johnson’s career effort was not enough to give Edwardsville the win, he was pleased with the team’s approach to the game.

“I feel we gave our best effort, but made too many mistakes that the other team capitalized off of,” Johnson said.

EHS coach Matt Martin said the errors in the first half of the game determined the final result.

“[We made] too many mistakes early that dug a hole we were not able to over come,” Martin said.

The Tigers managed to outperform the Cadets in the second half of the game.  Klein said the team did not make any specific adjustments to their game plan.

“We just had to do our job and play Tiger football,” Klein said.

Coach Martin said the team improved multiple aspects of its play in the second half, including tackling, eliminating the big play and general execution of assignments.

Martin is optimistic about the remainder of the season.

“I think our mistakes are fixable,” he said.  “When we fix those, we will be a very good team.”