'Underdog' Western Building on 2017 Run
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
September 27, 2018
DETROIT – Few equate competitive soccer with teams from Detroit, especially those in the Detroit Public School League. And that’s just fine with Detroit Western coach Forest Farmer and his players.
Being an underdog can work to one’s advantage.
Western is one of two schools in the PSL (Detroit Cass Tech is the other) that sponsors a boys soccer team that competes in the MHSAA Playoffs. Western’s program had its beginnings during the 2002-03 school year, and last season the Cowboys came of age.
Western won the school’s first District title in the sport by defeating Dearborn Fordson, 7-1, in the final. The Cowboys had opened tournament play by downing Wyandotte Roosevelt, 6-1, and then defeating, U-D Jesuit, 2-1 in a shootout, in the District Semifinal.
Western lost to Detroit Catholic Central, 3-0, in a Regional Semifinal, and the Shamrocks went on to win the Division 1 championship.
That was Western’s only loss, as the Cowboys finished 18-1-2. This season they are 4-2.
Since the MHSAA began sponsoring the boys soccer tournament in 1982, all but three Class A/Division 1 championships have been won by public schools in suburban Detroit or more recently Grand Rapids, or by members of the Detroit Catholic League.
It’s a struggle for programs like Western and Cass Tech to be successful. Coaches from established programs often don’t look to schedule teams like Western and Cass Tech because there’s at least the perception that teams from the city won’t be competitive and the games will be lopsided.
“We basically play whoever we can,” said the 50-year-old Farmer, who’s now in his sixth season as Western’s head coach. “We’re able to schedule 13 to 14 games while others play 18 or so. We’re not in a league. We’d like to get into a league.”
Farmer said he’s grateful for programs like those from Birmingham Seaholm and Birmingham Brother Rice that annually schedule Western. By playing these established programs, the Cowboys are able to gauge where they are as a team and better prepare for the MHSAA tournament.
Farmer jumped at the opportunity to coach at Western. He played soccer at Rochester Adams and dabbled in coaching other sports, like baseball and football, before he returned to soccer. He said initially he had difficulty convincing students to participate. But once they bought into what he was trying to teach, the numbers started to increase.
Western doesn’t have a freshman or a junior varsity team, but there are 22 athletes in the program. Sure, Farmer would love to have a sub-varsity team help feed the varsity. But the silver lining is he is able to coach his players all four years of their high school careers.
“I’m tough on them. All of the kids want to learn, and they know what to expect,” he said. “And the parents love it. I get tremendous support. Here, I get to run the team like I want to. It’s old school.”
A handful of Farmer’s players have gone on to play in college, including Dylan Borzcak, a sophomore midfielder at Oakland University. Generally, Farmer will encourage his players to go to college, first and foremost. Then, if they do plan on playing soccer, he often suggests somewhere like nearby Schoolcraft College to get their feet wet – as Borzcak did before transferring to Oakland.
Steve Sanchez, 17, is one of four seniors on Western’s team. Not only has soccer been his main sport throughout his life, but he’s never played anything else. Even so, Sanchez, a defender, does not plan on playing soccer in college. He has a 3.5 grade-point average and is planning on majoring in engineering.
“My family has always been a soccer family,” he said. “My dad (Paramon Sanchez) played soccer when he was younger, and I grew up watching my brother, Paramount, play (at Western).
“This year our team is a work in progress. We lost eight seniors off of last year’s team but, yeah, we’re getting better. There’s no one individual who can outperform anyone else, so we’re all competing.”
Angel Magana is a junior striker and, like Sanchez, is a team captain. Magana, 16, started playing soccer at age 7 but, unlike Sanchez, plans on playing soccer in college. Magana’s brother, Brayan, is a freshman on the Western team.
“I pretty much like everything about the sport,” Angel Magana said. “I like scoring. This is the first year I’m playing striker, and I try to make the effort to score. I was a center mid last year and scored two goals. This year I’ve got 10.
“Winning the District was a great feeling. Underdogs? For sure. All of the Catholic schools and the others see us that way. I definitely consider ourselves as the underdogs. I like to have others feel that way. It’s great to show that we can play with them.”
Tom Markowski is a contributing writer for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Western's Angel Magana, left, defends against Fordson during last season's District Final. (Middle) Western coach Forest Farmer. (Below) The Cowboys are off to a 4-2 start this fall. (Top photo courtesy of Southgate Press & Guide; middle photos courtesy of Detroit Western’s soccer program.)
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.)