'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.)

Athens' Success Fueled by Players' Drive to be Part of School's Soccer Tradition

By Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com

November 9, 2023

GRAND LEDGE — Troy Athens boys soccer coach Todd Heugh stood on the field Saturday at Grand Ledge High School and reflected while his team was celebrating with fans on the other side of the stadium.

Greater DetroitAthens had just won its sixth state championship in school history with a 2-1 overtime triumph over Brighton in the Division 1 Final, and while talking about how his team won this particular title game, he also put a historical perspective on the key to the program’s success. 

Heugh – also the school’s first-year athletic director – said that while any player who comes through the program obviously has ambitions to one day play college or professional soccer, there is something else that drives them more than anything.

“An advantage I think we have at Athens is that a lot of times, a lot of our kids, their goal in our city is to make the varsity soccer team at Athens,” Heugh said. “When they make it, they give it everything they have.”

This has pretty much been the pattern since legendary head coach Tim Storch built the program into one of the state’s gold standards during the 1980s and ’90s.

Heugh saw it firsthand growing up in the community and as a member of Storch’s squad that won the 1989 Class A title. 

That motivation to be part of the fabled varsity has filtered all the way down to current players, who echo Heugh’s sentiments that desire No. 1 is to put on the Athens uniform once they get to high school.

“I went to Troy vs. Troy Athens games since I was in sixth grade,” said Athens senior Adriano Shauya, the team’s leading goal-scorer this season. “We used to sit together, I looked at those players and I was like, ‘One day, I want to be on that field as a Troy Athens player.’”

Shauya said he had roster spots available to him on academy teams over the last two years and he could’ve skipped high school soccer, but he wanted to fulfill his dream of playing for Athens.

Troy Athens JD Hupman (16) and Brighton’s Devlin McGinnis work to gain possession during Saturday’s Final.“I just took a look and said, ‘I love every single one of my teammates, and I love my city,’” Shauya said. “I grew up in the city.”

Because of the ambition of so many players in Troy to play high school soccer, it not only creates unmatched drive and determination for Athens, but also provides unmatched depth each season.

Heugh said his team was able to go 17 or 18 deep during games this season, which allowed the Red Hawks to be the fresher team throughout three overtime victories during the MHSAA Tournament. 

Athens was clearly the better team in overtime against Brighton, building a 10-1 advantage in shots, eight of which were on goal.

“When we are able to throw waves of players like that at people, it’s been nice,” Heugh said. “We took a large roster at the beginning of the year, and it was tricky. There were some unhappy kids. Kids that don’t get the minutes that they want to get, and they are pretty good players who probably could get those minutes. But they are willing to do what’s best for the team, and they’re willing to take their minutes when they get them.” 

Athens will have the unenviable task of replacing 16 seniors from this year’s squad. But if there’s a high school program that never has issues reloading instead of rebuilding, it’s Athens soccer. 

As the team was celebrating with fellow students, parents and fans after the game, it’s a good assumption there were youth players in the community sitting in the stands who are now dreaming of one day being on the same field wearing an Athens jersey. 

“I was in eighth grade, and I saw those guys win the championship (in 2019),” said senior Manny Aigbedo, who scored the winning goal in overtime. “I’m like, ‘Man, I want to do something like that one day. I want to be on the field and step up and score for the team and celebrate, and win a championship.’ I was inspired by the guys before me, and I hope that this win today will inspire players to come next through Troy Athens soccer.”

Keith DunlapKeith 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 (Top) Troy Athens players celebrate their overtime victory Saturday night at Grand Ledge. (Middle) Troy Athens JD Hupman (16) and Brighton’s Devlin McGinnis work to gain possession during Saturday’s Final.