After Delay, Greenhills Storms to 1st Title
November 4, 2017
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
ROCHESTER HILLS – It wasn’t a pot of gold at the end of a literal rainbow over Stoney Creek High School’s field on Saturday, but an MHSAA championship trophy was still a great prize for Ann Arbor Greenhills.
For the first time in school history, Greenhills is a Finals champion in boys soccer following a 1-0 win over Kalamazoo Hackett in the Division 4 title game.
After the teams broke off for halftime with the game scoreless, lightning was spotted to start what turned out to be an 88-minute weather delay.
Skies eventually cleared, and the teams began the second half playing under a visible rainbow high above the field.
With 23:58 left, Greenhills made its trophy claim.
After earning a corner kick with a rush down the sideline and cross toward the middle of the field that was deflected out of bounds by a Hackett defender, Greenhills senior Jerry Tucker put home a perfect service into the box off of the corner by senior teammate Matthew Pumphrey for the game’s only goal.
Tucker said he deflected the ball into the wide-open net with his hip/waist area.
“In the moment, I saw it was going over the guy’s head and I couldn’t go too low,” Tucker said. “It went off my waist and into the goal.”
From there, Greenhills (20-6-1) didn’t sit back with the lead and managed to put a good amount of pressure on Hackett without giving up any dangerous counterattacks.
The Irish did manage to earn two corner kicks after the goal, but they were harmlessly cleared away.
Greenhills had lost in its three previous MHSAA championship game appearances, the most recent in 2010.
“To be able to win is very difficult to describe,” said Greenhills head coach Lucian Popescu, who coached that runner-up team in 2010.“It’s hard to have words about it.”
It certainly was noteworthy that Greenhills was able to shut out Hackett, given the Irish (19-2-2) entered the game having scored 34 goals in six playoff games and hadn’t been shut out since its season opener against Mattawan.
“We emphasized simple things we needed to do,” Popescu said. “Instead of marking the forwards, we were actually looking to play more aggressive to try and stop the pass to them. I think we were able to be successful most of the time.”
Hackett head coach Ian Troutman certainly had lofty praise for the defensive effort turned in by Greenhills.
“They had a great game plan and their back line, in particular their holding midfielders, did a great job keeping us limited in time and space on the ball, which we are not used to,” Troutman said. “We are used to having the lion’s share of possession. We had a little bit of a hard time controlling the ball in their half. Their intensity and speed on defense really helped them out.”
Both teams had to deal with a rare November thunderstorm that forced the lengthy delay, which started at halftime when the teams huddled up for talks with their coaches.
Tucker said he and the rest of his teammates stayed off their phones during the delay, opting for other ways to kill the time.
“We ate come Cliff bars and we stayed calm,” Tucker said. “We kept our phones away and were trying to stay focused on the game. We are good at keeping our mindset.”
Greenhills did, and that trophy at the end of the rainbow Saturday is now headed to its school forever.
PHOTOS: (Top) Greenhills players celebrate during Saturday’s Division 4 championship win. (Middle) Hackett’s Daniel Amat (4) attempts to gain possession.
DCC Caps Undefeated Run as best in D1
November 7, 2020
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
COMSTOCK PARK – Jack Leuker had a vision three years ago, and Saturday afternoon on a sun-soaked afternoon in Comstock Park, that vision became a reality.
Leuker, a senior midfielder and captain, scored on two penalty kicks – including the game-winner late in the first portion of overtime – to power Detroit Catholic Central to a 2-1 victory over Traverse City West for its second Division 1 title in the last four years.
The last one came in 2017, when Leuker was a freshman observer.
“When I watched my freshman year and we won on a penalty kick, I thought: ‘I could see myself doing that in two or three years,’” said Leuker, one of four senior captains for the Shamrocks. “Fortunately, I got the chance to do it today.”
The win capped an unbeaten season for DCC (13-0-2), which had about 40 percent of its games wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the Shamrocks needed to come from behind to defeat Berkley in the Regional Final and Mattawan in the Semifinal, this time they never trailed against a Traverse City West team which was hoping to improve on its 4-1 loss to Troy Athens in the 2019 Final.
DCC controlled play and had several scoring chances in the first half, including a flying header by senior forward Landon Lodato which sailed just over the goal. But the first 40 minutes ended in a 0-0 tie.
It remained scoreless until a little over six minutes into the second half, when a handball on the Titans set up the first penalty-kick opportunity for Leuker.
The Titans’ keeper went to his left, leaving space on the left side of the net for Leuker to open the scoring.
“There were some nerves there, for sure, but I just picked my spot and trusted it,” Leuker said.
It looked like that 1-0 lead might hold up, before the Titans dug deep and started to apply more pressure on Shamrocks senior keeper John Browning during the game’s final 15 minutes.
After TC West’s Josh Hirschenberger was denied a good scoring chance by the DCC defense at the 13:05 mark, the Titans were awarded a penalty kick after a holding call in the box.
That set the stage for Titans junior Colin Blackport, who entered the game with 19 goals and 29 assists, and he showed how he was able to rack up those gaudy offensive numbers by firing a bullet into the left side of the net to tie the game.
Eighth-year DCC coach Gene Pulice, whose team has become known for rallying from behind, knew his team wouldn’t panic after giving up a lead, either.
“We knew we were going to get scored on – that’s the mindset we go in with, so when it happens, we don’t worry about it and just go out and get it back,” said Pulice, who is assisted by Mike Stratton and Brent Wasik. “That’s the attitude that we have lived on all year long.”
The game then headed to overtime, but not before Titans senior all-stater Tony Gallegos almost single-handedly won it for his team
With time running down, Gallegos took off on a charge and used his speed to get around the Shamrocks’ defense and fired a shot which reached the back of the net about two seconds after time had expired.
That set the stage for Leuker’s second penalty kick goal, this one coming after a tripping call with just 19 seconds remaining in the first overtime session. Leuker went the other way this time, sending the game-winner into the right side of the net.
From there, Pulice left matters in the capable hands of his aggressive defense, which allowed less than one goal per game this season – 13 goals in 15 games, to be exact.
“Our goal every game is to be the best with our feet and also the most physical team,” said Shamrocks senior defender and captain Andrew Memmer. “That’s the CC style of play. That’s the reason we’ve had an undefeated season.”
DCC held a 10-7 edge in shots and 10-6 advantage in corner kicks.
TC West (22-2-2) didn’t go down without a fight, working for a pair of corner kicks in the final four minutes of overtime (including a kick at the 3:20 mark which sailed tantalizing past the goal mouth), but sixth-year coach Matt Griesenger’s team was unable to score again.
That led to a typical title celebration after a very non-typical season, perhaps the first time that a player has cited Zoom meetings as a reason for a state championship.
“I think the reason we were able to go undefeated and find a way to win every game is our discipline,” explained Memmer. “I mean, when we were shut down, we were doing online workouts on Zoom. I don’t think many teams have the discipline to do that.”
Click for the full stat summary.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Catholic Central’s Jack Leuker unloads a shot during Saturday’s Division 1 Final. (Middle) Chad Ewing (10) tries to block off Traverse City West’s Josh Hirschenberger. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)