Comeback Rangers Regain Top Spot
June 9, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
BIRMINGHAM – First, Trent Bohrmann’s stick flew high into the air. Then his right glove, followed by his left.
Finally, Bohrmann tossed his helmet to one side before being embraced by another mohawk-shaven teammate coming toward him from the other. The senior goalie wouldn’t need his gear anymore – although it came in quite handy over the last 19 minutes of Saturday’s MHSAA Division 2 Final at Seaholm High.
That’s how long he and his Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central teammates kept Detroit Country Day scoreless in coming from three goals down to win this season’s championship, 7-6.
The Rangers scored four straight and got two key fourth-period plays from their senior in net in toppling the reigning champion Yellowjackets.
"We came together truly that last half after they got that sixth goal. We really tore it up,” Bohrmann said. “And then that last quarter was just so nerve-wracking, because you knew they were coming. You knew they were going to be taking shots. You just had to stop it.
“We’ve had a few close games this year, and in playing those games, I knew our defense as a whole could step up and handle that pressure, even at this level.”
Detroit Country Day finished this spring 15-7. Forest Hills Central, winner of the title in 2010, capped this season 21-2. FHC was No. 1 and Country Day was No. 2 in the LaxPower computer rankings heading into the Regional semifinals.
Entering the championship game, FHC had given up 5.3 goals per game this season, with Bohrmann saving 65 percent of shots against him. Against Country Day, he stopped 13 of 19 – including perhaps his biggest of the season on a point-blank shot with 6:03 to play.
He made his second potential game-saving play with 2:12 to go, diving for the end line to gain possession for the Rangers after another Yellowjackets’ shot sailed past the net.
But he needed help. Junior Luke Gerard (61) and senior C.J. Biggs had combined for 102 goals entering Saturday. And trailing 2-0 after the first quarter, FHC got on the board on a Gerard goal from junior Collin Schlosser 3:20 into the second. But Country Day scored the next two to push its lead to 4-1 and led 4-2 at halftime.
“The whole time, I’m just thinking this is what we worked for. I know my team is going to come through. I just had faith in my teammates,” Gerard said. “We were definitely feeling things out. This was the first time we’d played DCD … and we knew in the second half we’d have to bring it with our offense.”
Schlosser answered with two goals during the first half of the third quarter. His second goal, 5:41 in, started FHC’s four-goal streak capped by Gerard’s go-ahead strike with 14:43 to play in the game.
“They took advantage of the times when we really made some mistakes,” Country Day coach Byron Collins said. “We made some really big errors, I think, errors we had been making early in the season that suddenly started resurfacing as the pressure got a little bit more. I think at times we succumbed to that and didn’t play our style. But hats off to them. It’s gotta take a good team to take advantage of those things.”
Senior Ahmed Iftikhar had 15 saves for Country Day, including a number on shots fired from only a few feet away. Sophomore Shane Switzer scored a game-high three goals for the Yellowjackets and also had an assist.
Sophomore Andrew Kransberger added two assists for the Rangers, and senior Kevin Stephen had two goals, including the one that tied the score 7:25 into the third quarter. Junior Neil Cunningham also scored for FHC.
“I think nerves hit us a little bit. We just talked at halftime; we can win this game. There’s nothing out there we haven’t seen before,” Rangers coach Tony Quinn said. “We just got our transition game going. That really was the difference. We got some goals moving up and down the field that we probably wouldn’t have gotten in set-up situations because their defense and goal was such an outstanding group.”
Click for the full scoring summary.
PHOTOS: (Top) Forest Hills Central junior Spencer Nehls (3) readies to fire a shot during Saturday's Division 2 Final. (Middle) Rangers goalie Trent Bohrmann (12) deflects a shot by Country Day's Pat Dugan (4). Photos by John Johnson/MHSAA
Last-Second Goal Earns Lasting Fame
June 8, 2019
By Jeff Bleiler
Special for Second Half
HOWELL – Justin Glod recalls vividly the feeling of watching another team celebrate a Division 1 lacrosse championship last year.
He wasn’t about to endure that pain again with his senior season winding down.
With his Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice team trailing by one against reigning champion Detroit Catholic Central and the clock ticking precariously close to zero, Glod scored the game-tying goal with 1:55 left in regulation. He followed it with the championship-winner with one second to play Saturday at Parker Field in Howell to complete the Warriors’ fourth perfect season in school history and add their 14th Finals championship trophy in 15 seasons.
When Glod’s game-winner crossed the goal line to put his team ahead 14-13, he was chased down and mobbed by teammates.
“I turned back to the crowd, put my hands up. It was the best feeling in the world,” Glod said. “I saw my teammates run after me. It was incredible. I lost a state championship last year, so I went from the lowest of the lows to the highest of the highs.”
Brother Rice finished a perfect 23-0 with three victories over Catholic Central, the last one a back-and-forth affair that could have gone either way. Catholic Central’s season ended at 20-4 a year after wresting the championship away from Brother Rice in an 11-10 final. It was the fifth runner-up finish for Catholic Central over the last six seasons.
“We had to hold for the last shot, and we knew if we had the ability to shoot and score, it’s gonna happen,” Brother Rice coach Ajay Chawla said. “We ran through a play, missed a shot with eight seconds to go, and at that time you got to put it in the guys’ hands, the ones you can trust. Joey’s been there before, he’s a senior, he’s a leader. It’s awesome.”
Catholic Central took a 13-12 lead with 2:29 to play on Joey Kamish’s sixth goal of the game, on an assist from fellow senior Ryan Birney.
It marked just the third Catholic Central goal of the second half after the Shamrocks netted 10 in the first half.
Glod then tied the game with a shot from a sharp angle, and the Warriors got the all-important possession on the ensuing faceoff, milking the clock until there were 15 seconds left. A missed shot with eight seconds to play set up Glod’s heroics.
“Obviously we’d prefer to have the ball there at the end, but they got it,” Catholic Central coach Dave Wilson said. “They timed it well, they played it well. I think the ball just went in. So it was close, it was close all the way through. If you give Brother Rice extra opportunities, they’re going to capitalize.”
Catholic Central quickly captured its opponent’s attention by opening the scoring on a goal by Birney with 7:53 to play in the first quarter. After Pat O’Hara’s goal tied the game for Brother Rice a minute later, Kamish scored back-to-back goals 22 seconds apart to put the Shamrocks in front 3-1.
O’Hara’s second goal of the first quarter pulled Brother Rice within one with just over three minutes to play in the opening frame before Ryan Sullivan reestablished a two-goal Shamrocks lead with 1:31 to play. Kamish’s third of the quarter with six seconds left saddled Brother Rice with a four-goal deficit to start the second.
True to form, the Warriors were swift to answer, scoring five straight goals over the first 6:43 of the second quarter. O’Hara, DJ Dixon, Dylan Braddock and Michael Cosgrove all found the back of the net, with Braddock scoring twice. His second put the Warriors ahead 7-6, and the Shamrocks appeared to be reeling.
But the last four minutes of the second quarter were starkly different than the first eight minutes for the Shamrocks, who had only a handful of possessions in the early going of the quarter with most ending in missed shots, turnovers or balls in goalie Dom Dadabbo’s mesh.
Birney found pay dirt with four minutes to play to knot the game and again three minutes later to put Catholic Central in front again. Connor Beals’ goal with 1:04 to play in the half came just seven seconds after Birney’s, and Kamish put an exclamation point on the first half with a goal with six seconds to play to give the Shamrocks a 10-7 halftime lead.
Glod scored less than two minutes into the third quarter, and Dixon capitalized on a Shamrocks penalty with eight minutes to play to pull Brother Rice within 10-9. Kamish scored his third late-quarter goal, this time with 29 seconds to play in the third to make it 11-9 Catholic Central entering the final quarter.
Dixon and Braddock scored early in the fourth to square the game, before Birney scored and Jacob Hanewicz answered to keep it tied. Kamish then put Catholic Central ahead 13-12 with his final goal.
“Those last 3 minutes, I was kind of in shock,” Glod said. “It’s been an incredible ride. Ever since the day after the last state championship game, we got at it. We had this in mind the whole year. We knew we were going to get back here and knew we had to do everything we could to win this game, and it happened.”
Wilson had a simple message for his heart-broken team postgame.
“I told them I loved them,” he said.
Click for the full scoring summary.
PHOTOS: (Top) Brother Rice raises the Division 1 championship trophy Saturday. (Middle) Brother Rice and Detroit Catholic Central players chase down a loose ball.