Canton Caps Fall as Undefeated Champion
November 1, 2014
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
BRIGHTON – Three years ago, Jason Ren watched his older brother Brian help Canton High School win the MHSAA Division 1 boys soccer championship.
Ren wanted the same feeling that his brother experienced. Saturday afternoon at Brighton High School, Ren got the same feeling and more.
He scored the only goal of the game as Canton defeated Rochester Adams 1-0 for the Division I title.
Canton finished the season 24-0-3 and was the only undefeated high school boys soccer team in Michigan this fall.
“I wanted this so bad,” Ren said. “It felt really good to win it again.”
Ren’s big moment came in the 14th minute of the first half. He took a pass from senior midfielder Jack Zemanski and found the back corner of the net from about 22 yards out. It was the third goal of the season for Ren, a junior midfielder.
“Jack had the ball, I overlapped him, and he laid it off to me,” Ren said. “I just hit it as fast as I could in the far corner.”
Although he did so early in the game, the Canton defense made the goal stand up as the Chiefs registered their 16th shutout of the season.
“The first goal is always one of the most important goals, so to get that was good,” Zemanski said. “Kyle Mettlach won the ball on a header, and the throw-in came to me. I just saw Jason called for it, and I laid it out for him, and he hit a perfect shot. There’s nothing a goalie can do to save that.
“We just had to defend the rest of the game, and it worked out well for us.”
Canton, the Kensington Lakes Activities Association Kensington Conference champion, had faced Rochester Adams in the second-to-last game of the regular season. The 1-1 outcome was one of three ties the Chiefs had this season.
“We were confident that we could beat them this time because we felt we deserved to win that game,” Canton senior Carter Schenk said, “but tying them I think humbled us a little bit. It made us think they could play with us and made us work a little harder.”
Rochester Adams, which ended its season 13-5-7, was runner-up in the Oakland Activities Association Red. It was the second MHSAA runner-up finish for Adams, which won the Division 1 title in 1999 and also fell in the 2001 Final.
Both teams had six shots, but Rochester Adams had only one shot on goal, while the Chiefs had two. Canton goalkeeper Andrew Loehnis made only one save in the shutout.
“Our defense all year has been stifling,” second-year Canton coach Mark Zemanski said. “We had a shutout here in the Final and a shutout in the semis.”
It was a cold day, and a brisk wind was blowing directly from one goal to the other. It gave each team an edge when it had the wind at its back. Canton scored with the wind in the first half and then held off Rochester Adams in the second half.
“The wind definitely made it difficult for both teams,” Mark Zemanski said. “We talked to the boys about keeping the ball on the ground and trying to possess. For the most part, we did a pretty good job of that.
“We knew that whoever had the wind was going to have the favor. I think even in the second half my boys did a nice job of moving the ball around and at least keeping it away from them as much as they could.”
It was the second year in a row that Canton entered the postseason undefeated, but this trip had a much different outcome. Last year, Canton lost to Salem in the district, and the two teams had a rematch two weeks ago. Canton won that one 2-1 in overtime, and it proved to be a springboard to the MHSAA title.
“I felt like that was a big thing,” Canton senior defender Sam Belcher said. “Knowing that our season ended last year and we were that good of a team, it was like, ‘We’re not going to let that happen again.’
“I wasn’t going to let my senior year stop after one or two games. We were going all the way. I knew that for a fact.”
Belcher, like the 11 other seniors on the team, only had to look back to three years ago and Canton’s 1-0 victory over Grand Haven for inspiration.
“The whole time leading up to this game, I was thinking back to being at that state championship game and watching them win; the joy on their faces and how they felt, that is what was driving me to win this one,” Belcher said. “I wanted to be just like that. It looked so fun, I wanted to be part of it, too.
“This surpasses what I thought it would feel like, for sure. It’s like the greatest feeling in the world.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Rochester Adams’ Devin Beyer (1) leaps over a challenge by Canton’s Kyle Mettlach. (Below) Canton defender Beaumont Hoffman controls the ball during his team’s shutout in the Division 1 Final. (Click for all team and action photos from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
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.