Mason Comes Back, Comes Through in D2
November 7, 2015
By Butch Harmon
Special for Second Half
COMSTOCK PARK – The soccer season ended Saturday similarly to how it started for Mason.
The big difference was that the Bulldogs were hoisting the Division 2 championship trophy at the end.
Mason earned its fourth boys soccer championship with a 3-2 victory against Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern in the Division 2 Final at Comstock Park. The teams played to a 2-2 tie through regulation and overtime before Mason outshot Forest Hills Northern 4-3 in a shootout.
Mason almost didn’t make it to overtime as Forest Hills Northern scored a late goal with 2:32 remaining in regulation to take a 2-1 lead. With time running down, however, Mason turned up the pressure in a frenzied effort to tie the match. That effort paid off when, with 38 seconds left, Christian Jordan knocked a shot in during a scramble in front of the Forest Hills Northern net that tied the game.
“We just went full out,” Jordan said. “After they scored to take the lead I thought we were about to lose. We just attacked the net. We made a play called number six, and Caleb Graham took a shot on goal. It bounced right to me, and I just poked it in. When I scored that goal, I just ran to our student section and was pointing at them. It was incredible.”
Fellow senior captain Holden Dippel had a little more confidence in the comeback than his teammate did.
“I knew we could come back,” Dippel said. “We’ve been down and have come back before this year. It happened to us in our first game of the season against Williamston. We fell behind by a goal and came back. We started the season this way, and we ended it with a comeback.”
To complete the comeback, however, the Bulldogs needed to go through a pair of 10-minute overtime periods that were scoreless, sending the match into the penalty-kick shootout.
Dippel gave Mason the early lead when he scored in the first round after Forest Hills Northern missed its first penalty kick.
Both teams scored in the second round of the shootout with Travis Barrington scoring for FHN and John Kingman answering for Mason.
In the third round Forest Hills Northern missed again while Mason’s Tristan Pease scored to put Mason up 3-1 with two rounds left.
FHN then cut the margin to 3-2 on a goal from Hunter Barrington, and Mason was unable to answer. Northern’s Diego Compean kept the Huskies’ hopes alive with another score, but Mason’s Lirim Shefkiu then scored the deciding goal, setting off a wild Mason celebration for its first soccer title since winning Division 2 in 1997.
“It feels so good,” Dippel said. “We’ve been talking forever about getting a state title. This is just insane. To win it in our senior year like this is just crazy.”
Mason coach Nick Binder knew exactly what his players were feeling, as he was a member of that title team in 1997.
“As a coach I feel so great for these kids,” Binder said. “I’ve known a lot of these kids since they were 5 and 6 years old. This is exciting for the whole community. It’s always been a goal of this team to win a state title. Growing up playing soccer in Mason, it’s always a goal to win a state title.”
The title was hard-earned as Mason needed to battle from behind for almost the entire match.
Forest Hills Northern took the first lead at 15:13 of the first half when junior Evan VanNortwick scored.
Mason came back to tie the match at the 31:15 mark of the second half when Jordan scored on a header, making the score 1-1.
The two teams then battled it out as the second half wound down. Forest Hills Northern applied some heavy pressure late, and with 2:32 remaining in regulation Travis Barrington scored on a header giving the Huskies the 2-1 lead and pulling them within seconds of a first-ever soccer title.
“We just had 38 seconds to go but they got one on us,” Forest Hills Northern coach Daniel Siminski said. “It was a scramble in front of the net, and it’s hard to describe. (Mason) earned it. It is what it is. I have no regrets because the kids did all they could do. There were 118 teams that started the tournament in Division 2, and we ended up playing on the final day. We knew our season was going to end one way or another.”
Forest Hills Northern ended the season with a 22-2-3 overall record. Saturday’s appearance was its first in an MHSAA Boys Soccer Final.
Mason ended with a 24-3 overall record.
“Our guys just kept battling,” Binder said. “Even when we were down at halftime, they believed. They believed at the end of regulation and they believed in the shootout. Their confidence never wavered.”
PHOTOS: (Top) A Mason player looks for an opening with Cameron Leitz (12) blocking the way. (Middle) Forest Hills Northern’s Hayden Strobel heads the ball while surrounded by Mason defenders.
Roy's Homecoming Success Continues for Division 1 Contender Clarkston
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
September 28, 2023
For Sebi Roy, there’s definitely been no place like home.
Just as last season started, Roy moved back to his hometown of Clarkston to play high school soccer after spending roughly 1½ years training with Major League Soccer’s Cincinnati FC as part of the MLS Next program.
Going from training with a professional organization to high school soccer might seem like a major downgrade to the average soccer follower, but it hasn’t been the case at all for Roy.
“It’s great to go from a super high skill ceiling where every touch matters, to something a little bit more free,” he said. “I know a lot more people and it’s a great way to get confidence. I didn’t get a whole lot of training in Cincy, and back here I get so much more individual training in general. Getting the touches and getting development was crucial.”
Ever since Roy came back to Clarkston last year, opponents have certainly wished he stayed in Cincinnati.
It’s especially been the case this year, as Roy, a center forward, has been just about unstoppable.
The 6-foot-3 Roy entered Thursday with 15 goals and five assists over 11 games despite being the constant focal point of opposing defenses and playing in arguably the state’s toughest league, the Oakland Activities Association Red.
Against 2022 Division 1 champion Rochester Adams, Roy scored five goals in a 7-3 win.
Clarkston head coach Ian Jones said he hadn’t even met Roy before last year, then heard rumors from others on that team he was coming back in town.
Still, Roy showed up after tryouts had ended, so Jones had Roy go through a personal two-day tryout.
It obviously didn’t take long for Jones to realize Roy was too good to not have on the team, and that was reinforced during the first game last year when he scored a goal on his first touch of the game. Roy went on to make the Division 1 all-state first team as Clarkston finished 16-5-2 and reached the Regional Finals.
Jones, who has professional experience playing in England and has coached for more than 20 years in the United States, said Roy definitely has the tools to be a professional player.
“I’ve never seen anything like him,” he said. “He’s got unbelievable touch. He’s left-footed and right-footed. He’s got vision and strength. It’s fun to watch him, forget coaching him. You find yourself watching him in games because he’s so good.”
Roy’s father is Travis Roy, who in 1991 won the state's Mr. Soccer Award playing for Livonia Stevenson before going on to play in college at Wisconsin.
Also on the Clarkston team this year is Roy’s brother, Fagan, who is a freshman.
Sebi Roy said his dad started him in soccer “as soon as he could walk,” and he has loved it so much that he hasn’t dabbled in any other sport.
Despite already getting a small taste of what professional soccer would be like, Roy said he prefers to play in college and is still in the process of determining the best spot.
Asked if there’s any top professional player he likes to emulate, the answer was a hard no.
“I want to be my own person,” he said.
Thanks to Roy’s production and a core of other talented players who could be playing at the next level, Clarkston earlier this month achieved a program first – the No. 1 ranking in Division 1.
Clarkston (9-1-1) is down to No. 4 this week after losing its first game last Thursday, a 2-1 decision at now-No. 2 Oxford.
There could soon be a rematch, as Clarkston and Oxford are in the same District in the upcoming Division 1 tournament.
If the teams meet again, Oxford will know the main player to stop – and Clarkston will know the main player to ride as it pursues what would be a first state title in boys soccer. (The Wolves were Division 1 runners-up in 2007).
“He’s the most dangerous player we’ve seen by far,” Oxford coach Adam Bican said. “His size, his athleticism, and his IQ is off the chart. He’s so dangerous, and he has one of the better shots I’ve seen. He’s a pure finisher.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties
(Photos by Keith Dunlap.)