Performance: WMC's Jameson Goorman
November 1, 2019
Jameson Goorman
Muskegon Western Michigan Christian senior – Soccer
The Warriors’ senior keeper is the first to credit the defenders in front of him for Western Michigan Christian’s five shutouts in six Division 4 tournament games over the last three weeks. But he deserves ample credit as well, and came up with a number of key saves in last week’s 2-1 shootout win over top-ranked Grandville Calvin Christian to help his team to the Semifinals and earn the MHSAA “Performance of the Week.”
Fourth-ranked WMC will face No. 2 Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett in Saturday’s Division 4 Final, and it can be argued no team has traveled a tougher road to the season’s final day. After blanking three District opponents, Goorman helped the Warriors to a 3-0 shutout of No. 3 North Muskegon in the Regional Semifinal. Next was Calvin, and Goorman made two saves during the second period of overtime and two more during the shootout, including on Calvin’s final shot to ice the win. He then had another shutout as WMC defeated No. 5 Dansville in Wednesday’s Semifinal, his 14th shutout this season, which took his goals-against average down to 0.57. Goorman joined the varsity for the District as a freshman and then was the part-time starter for the first part of his sophomore year before taking over when his partner in net was injured. He made the Division 4 all-state third team in 2018 and over his career has logged 45 shutouts, seventh-most in MHSAA history.
Goorman also has played baseball and basketball during his high school career, although he has decided to not play basketball this winter. But the court certainly has had a major impact on Jameson as an athlete, directly and indirectly – his grandfather Jim Goorman led WMC’s boys basketball varsity to 504 wins and five Class D titles from 1980-2012. There’s also a family background in soccer championships – Jameson’s dad Jamie was on the Warriors’ 1988 Class C-D title-winning team. Jameson is hoping to continue playing soccer at the collegiate level and also carries a grade-point average approaching 3.5. He plans to study either nursing or accounting.
Coach David Hulings said: “He knows the game and is able to interpret what he sees so quickly that he’s able to do what he needs to do. This year he had two really great saves, one against Reeths-Puffer that kept us in the game and allowed us to finish with a tie. The other was against Leland in the last five minutes of the game. He made a tremendous save and we won 1-0. … In our first game against Orchard View, they had seven breakaways and Jameson saved every one of them. Those were give-me goals, and he stopped them. I don’t know of a goalkeeper in my nearly three decades of coaching who is better 1-on-1 than Jamo.” (Comments first appeared in the Local Sports Journal.)
Performance Point: “I think since we got to the playoffs, we’ve been playing our best soccer,” Goorman said. “I haven’t had to make a ton of saves, other than the PKs, so most of the credit should go to my defense. (Opponents) haven’t had a ton of opportunities. Against Grandville Calvin Christian we went to a PK shootout. I’ve always been pretty good at PKs, so I just go in there thinking I’m going to save every single PK. For me, I was pretty confident going into it. … My sophomore and junior years, we lost in PKs both years in Regionals. We did not want to go out on PKs again, so we’ve been practicing that all year. I was getting pretty confident in our chances in that. My sophomore and junior year I felt really nervous, but going into the last shootout I felt really confident; I didn’t feel that nervous . I was more excited than I was nervous.”
It’s the guys in front of me: “Brandon Fles, I think he’s one of the top two defenders in the state if not the best defender in the state, in my opinion. He’s been phenomenal since sophomore year. Him and Jake Betten, Isaiah Visker and Brandon Eenigenburg, the whole back line has played really well. I think most of the credit should go to them. There haven’t been too many teams that have challenged me a lot. There’s been some shots, but a lot of them have been from far out and not too hard to handle.”
Playoff path: “Calvin, North Muskegon and Dansville were all really quality teams. … With our team, it’s probably a little different than with any other team. We really like to stay loose, relaxed and just be ourselves for the games. And during practices we stay loose; we have fun. We’re just enjoying every minute of it. … It’s definitely not easy to have fun and stay loose and play hard and keep the intensity up, but I think that’s something we’ve just learned to do well going into the postseason. We’ve been trying to prepare ourselves all year for this, so I don’t think it’s been too hard to bring our best game every single game.”
Grandpa taught us: “It’s awesome being in a family with him. He’s really showed me how to win and how to have confidence, but also not (to) be overconfident and cocky. (He) showed me how to be humble, and I think I really appreciate that – and just how always to have good sportsmanship.”
Pitch play: “(Soccer has) probably come the most natural to me. I’ve had to work harder in baseball to get good at that – I’ve worked at that my whole life. I think soccer has come more naturally, and I’ve put more time and effort into that. I started playing club soccer my eighth grade year. It helped me so much with my feet, helped me get going, and then I started to really love soccer. I played it a lot more, so it became really fun for me, and I love my team. … I think after my sophomore year, I really just started to realize that I loved it more and I enjoyed playing it and I was getting better at it.”
– Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Past honorees
Oct. 24: Austin Plotkin, Brimley cross country - Report
Oct. 17: Jack Spamer, Brighton cross country - Report
Oct. 10: Kaylee Maat, Hudsonville volleyball - Report
Oct. 3: Emily Paupore, Negaunee cross country - Report
Sept. 26: Josh Mason, South Lyon soccer - Report
Sept. 19: Ariel Chang, Utica Eisenhower golf - Report
Sept. 12: Jordyn Shipps, DeWitt swimming - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Muskegon Western Michigan Christian's Jameson Goorman lines up a kick downfield. (Middle) Goorman makes a save during the Warriors' Regional Final shootout win last week over Grandville Calvin Christian. (Photos by Randy Riksen.)
Undefeated Fruitport Eying Historic Opportunities as Postseason Begins
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
October 10, 2024
The hardest thing for Dan Hazekamp is trying to single out individual players on his top-ranked Fruitport soccer team.
“The truth is, what we have here in Fruitport are a bunch of blue-collar guys that go out and play for each other and sacrifice for each other,” explained Hazekamp, whose team wrapped up the outright Ottawa-Kent Conference Silver title on Monday with a 2-0 win over visiting Grandville Calvin Christian.
“We have 24 great individuals. I’m more proud of that than any record.”
Nowhere is that blue-collar mentality more apparent that on the Trojans’ defensive line.
Fruitport, 17-0-1 and ranked No. 1 in the latest Division 2 coaches association poll, had a string of nine straight games without surrendering a goal and is yielding a meager 0.44 per game.
The final line of defense is senior keeper Logan Werschem, whose instincts and experience give the team confidence in pressure situations.
He would be the first to tell you that his defenders excel at limiting scoring chances, making his job much easier. Isaiah Packard, Braxton Ward and Sam Krueger are all seniors and returning defensive starters, along with junior Nathaniel Cribley-Cotto – who has used his 6-foot-2 size to fill the shoes of departed all-stater and four-year starter Brady Brown.
“We carry a lot of pride back there,” said Packard, who hopes to play soccer next year at Muskegon Community College and pursue a career in welding. “We don’t let balls past us very often. Nate is the new guy and he’s done great, but otherwise, it’s basically a two-year starting backline.”
Last year, Werschem and the Trojans defense set a school record with 15 shutouts, including 13 in a row before a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to eventual Division 2 champion Grand Rapids Christian in a Regional Final.
This year, the Trojans have 12 shutouts and would love to get at least four more to earn a coveted spot on the soccer record board which hangs at the Ken Erny Memorial Soccer Field.
“I love playing with those guys,” said Ward, who plans to play college baseball next year. “We have so much chemistry on our backline that we are able to play as one unit. Right now, we are just so locked in, every game.”
Fruitport’s defense has been so good that opponents are often forced to gamble and commit additional resources on offense, opening up counter opportunities for speedy junior Jorge Burgos-Yack (16 goals), 6-5 senior Isaac “Big Country” VanderMolen (13 goals) and senior midfielder Grade Anspach (10 assists).
That is exactly what happened at the end of Fruitport’s tight win over Calvin Christian in Monday’s O-K Silver Tournament title game.
With Fruitport clinging to a 1-0 lead into the final minute, the Squires pulled their keeper and put on the pressure. Werschem responded with a big save and then got the ball out quickly to a streaking Burgos-Yack, who guided a shot into an empty net with 13 seconds remaining.
The Trojans are a combined 35-3-4 over the past two seasons, with 27 shutouts. Two of those three losses were to eventual state champions – Hudsonville Unity Christian (Division 3) and Grand Rapids Christian (Division 2).
Fruitport now has an awkward eight days off before opening District play Oct. 15, an idle stretch that could be an issue for many teams, but not as much for a team as deep as the Trojans.
“Our practices are super intense, sometimes more than the games,” said Packard. “Our second in line is just as good as our first, so there’s really not a big drop-off. We have 24 guys, so we run hard 11s at practice.”
While shutouts in a season would be a good school record to have, this year’s team – which consists of seven seniors, 13 juniors, two sophomores and two foreign-exchange students – is focused on a more prestigious record: most wins in a season.
The Trojans won 20 games in 2008, and this team would break that record if it is able to win its two District games and then win two Regional games for the first time. Fruitport has reached Regional Finals four times, but has never won a Regional title or played in the Semifinals or Finals.
Fruitport will likely face bitter rival Spring Lake – which provided the only blemish on the Trojans’ record this fall with a 1-1 tie Sept. 28 – in the District opener, and then it could be another rival, Muskegon Reeths-Puffer, in the District Final.
And then it only gets tougher from there.
“We talk all the time about the thin margins between winning and losing in the tournament, and how tiny details make all the difference,” said Hazekamp, a 2003 Fruitport graduate who coaches with his brother Steve. “We’ve embraced the expectations, and we’re not running from anything anymore.
“We have some guys who are hungry to get back to that point we reached last year – and then try to get a little more.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Carter Gregor (12) celebrates his goal Oct. 3 against Wyoming Godwin Heights with teammates including Isaiah Packard, Jyles Smith and Carlos Cruz. (Middle) Packard battles a Godwin Heights player for possession as Jayden Booker looks on. (Below) Fruitport boys soccer coach Dan Hazekamp keeps a close eye on the action. (Photos by Colleen Merkins.)