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
'Dogs' Eat, East Grand Rapids Wins in D2
June 10, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
HOWELL – If the “dog’s gotta eat,” as the expression goes, consider Hub Hejna permanently satisfied with the final feast of his high school lacrosse career.
East Grand Rapids senior attacks Hejna, Ben Keller and Luke Elder earned the nickname “dogs” from coach Rick DeBlasio earlier this season. And if there ever was a time to feed, Saturday’s Division 2 Final fit the bill.
The dogs combined to score eight goals, with Hejna’s last coming with two minutes to play as rival Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central was on a three-goal run. That last score ended up a little more insurance as the Pioneers closed out an 11-9 win and first MHSAA title in this sport since 2009 after finishing runner-up to the Rangers a year ago.
“It’s just part of the system,” Hejna said. “He came to calling us that, and whoever can get it done, just put it in the back of the net.
“It’s kinda goofy. But when a guy like that says something, you just roll with it, see where it goes.”
It went a lot farther than the last day of the season a year ago, when the Pioneers scored only six goals to Forest Hills Central’s 10 – although of those six, Hejna, Keller and Elder combined for five.
This season, entering this week, the trio had scored a combined 184 goals over 17 games. In Saturday’s Final, Hejna scored the team’s first two and four total, while Keller had three and Elder added one.
Forest Hills Central actually opened a 2-0 lead before Hejna’s two goals over the final 2:36 of the first quarter and Keller’s two over the first six minutes of the second gave East Grand Rapids a 4-2 lead that it never would relinquish, although the Rangers pulled within a goal three times.
But unlike in Wednesday's overtime Semifinal win over Detroit Country Day in which it trailed by four at one point, Forest Hills Central fell just short of turning the tide.
“We’re blessed this year with probably the three best attack guys in the state, as a group,” DeBlasio said. “There are other kids like Bryce (Clay of FHC) who are excellent. (But) when you put them all together, our three, we call them the dogs. And our whole attitude is just feed the dogs and make sure we enable them to go.”
East Grand Rapids had avenged last season’s championship game loss to Forest Hills Central with 15-13 and 16-9 wins this spring in finishing first just ahead of the Rangers in the Ottawa-Kent Conference Tier 1 standings.
But that didn’t mean the Pioneers (18-1) went into Saturday overconfident – not against an opponent they knew so well.
In fact, East Grand Rapids’ 11 goals were its second fewest this season. Forest Hills Central’s eight also were its second fewest.
Clay scored five of those goals, tying for fourth most in championship game history. Junior Patrick English added two.
Junior Eric Solberg added a pair of goals for the Pioneers.
“We had to play flawlessly to beat them, and obviously we got down in a position early that we didn’t want to be in,” FHC coach Patrick Clay said. “But given the situation from Wednesday we felt we could keep believing and we came up just a little short today.
“We talked about opportunity. Today we put ourselves in an opportunity to win.”
Forest Hills Central finished 15-7 this spring. East Grand Rapids’ lone loss came by a goal to Division 1 semifinalist Rockford. The Pioneers also earned a two-goal win early over eventual Division 1 runner-up Detroit Catholic Central.
Click for the full scoring summary.
PHOTOS: (Top) East Grand Rapids’ goalie Nick Milanowski reaches for a shot during Saturday’s Division 1 Final. (Middle) Forest Hills Central’s Luke Majick advances the ball.