Preview: Matching Best of East vs. West
June 4, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
This weekend’s MHSAA Girls Lacrosse Finals at Rockford High School will match the best from east and west – and top finishers from arguably the state's two strongest conferences for the sport.
Ottawa-Kent Conference Tier 1 champion East Grand Rapids will open the day at 2 p.m. seeking its fourth straight title, this time against Detroit Catholic League Division 1 runner-up Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood. O-K Tier 1 runner-up Rockford then will look to win its third straight Division 1 title, taking on Detroit Catholic League champion Bloomfield Hills Marian at 4:30 p.m.
Click for more information including all results from this season's tournament. Both finals will be streamed live on MHSAA.TV and viewable with subscription, and broadcast on MHSAANetwork.com.
Here's a brief look at the four teams vying for championships (player statistics do not include Semifinals):
Division 1
BLOOMFIELD HILLS MARIAN
Record/rank: 21-3, No. 2 at end of regular season
League finish: First in Detroit Catholic League Division 1
Coach: Jamie Francek, eighth season, fourth of second tenure (112-49-4)
Championship history: Division 1 runner-up 2009.
Best wins: 19-9 and 22-2 (Semifinal) over No. 9 Ann Arbor Pioneer, 14-3 and 13-10 (Regional Semifinal) over No. 4 Bloomfield Hills, 22-12 and 21-6 (Regional Quarterfinal) over No. 10 Troy, 14-9 over No. 3 Birmingham United in the Regional Final, 14-13 over Division 2 No. 2 Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood.
Players to watch: Caroline Forester, sr. A (103 goals, 24 assists); Colleen Grombala, jr. A (69 goals, 31 assists); Sarah Peterson, jr. M (16 goals, 13 assists); Claire Fisher, jr. A (92 goals, 28 assists); Claire Kelly, soph. M (36 goals, 12 assists); Olivia Hargrave-Thomas, sr. D.
Outlook: Marian has won four league championships since Francek returned to in 2012, and this is its best run during his tenures. Cranbrook Kingswood included, the Mustangs also beat six of the top-10 ranked Division 2 teams. Forester is one of five players in MHSAA girls lacrosse history to score at least 100 goals in a season, and she made the all-state first team last season while Fisher, Hargrave-Thomas, Kelly and Peterson all earned honorable mentions. The offensive firepower is impressive, but the defense might be more so; Marian is giving up only 7.8 goals per game.
ROCKFORD
Record/rank: 20-3, No. 1 at end of regular season
League finish: Second in Ottawa-Kent Conference Tier 1
Coach: Mike Emery, eighth season (140-37-6)
Championship history: Division 1 champion in 2014, 2013 and 2010.
Best wins: 17-10 over No. 5 Hartland in the Semifinal, 15-6 over No. 9 Ann Arbor Pioneer, 20-5, 19-9 and 20-8 (Regional Final) over No. 7 Grand Rapids Forest Hills United, 14-7 over No. 2 Bloomfield Hills Marian, 11-6 over No. 3 Birmingham United, 12-2 over No. 4 Bloomfield Hills.
Players to watch: Alexandra Vandermolen, jr. M (67 goals, 28 assists); MeKenzie Vandermolen, fr. M (44 goals, 10 assists); Brooklyn Neumen, fr. M (75 goals, 21 assists); Grace Gunneson, jr. A (52 goals, 21 assists). Kelly Spehar, sr. D.
Outlook: Whereas last season’s championship run included many of the same faces, at least on offense, as in 2013, this year’s team has a bit a different look – especially with freshman Neumen the leading scorer. Alexandrea Vandermolen made the all-state second team a year ago and was the team’s second-leading scorer in the 2014 Final. The Rams didn’t lose a game against a ranked team in Division 1 – and had a win over Saturday opponent Marian – and went 6-2 against top-10 teams in Division 2. Those losses were to East Grand Rapids, including one by a goal in overtime.
Division 2
BLOOMFIELD HILLS CRANBROOK KINGSWOOD
Record/rank: 18-3, No. 2 at end of regular season
League finish: Second in Detroit Catholic League Division 1
Coach: Greg Courter, first season (18-3)
Championship history: Has not played in an MHSAA Final.
Best wins: 24-6 (Semifinal) and 19-2 over No. 10 Farmington Hills Mercy, 24-3 (Regional Final) and 19-5 over No. 8 Detroit Country Day, 16-13 (Regional Semifinal), 10-8 and 16-6 over No. 5 Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart, 16-10 over Division 1 No. 3 Birmingham United, 21-12 over Division 1 No. 10 Troy, 20-8 over Division 1 No. 9 Ann Arbor Pioneer.
Players to watch: Grace Giampetroni, jr. M (59 goals, 44 assists); Ari Vespa, sr. M (58 goals, 17 assists); Isabelle Scane, fr. M (81 goals 22 assists); Brigitte Ballard, fr. G (6.47 goals-against average).
Outlook: Cranbrook Kingswood broke through to the Final for the first time under the guidance of Courter, who formerly coached girls lacrosse in California and Colorado. The Cranes’ losses are impressive as well – by only one goal apiece to Division 1 No. 2 Marian and No. 4 Bloomfield Hills, and also by one in the third of four meetings with Academy of the Sacred Heart. Senior Maddy Weber (39 goals) and sophomore Danielle Augier (28) also provide scoring punch from the attack position, with Augier joining Scane and Ballard among an impressive group of underclassmen making contributions.
EAST GRAND RAPIDS
Record/rank: 23-1, No. 1 at end of regular season
League finish: First in Ottawa-Kent Conference Tier 1
Coach: Rich Axtell, sixth season (119-17)
Championship history: Division 2 champion 2014, 2013 and 2012.
Best wins: 9-5 over No. 3 Okemos in the Semifinal, 9-4, 13-6 and 19-6 (Regional Semifinal) over No. 4 Grand Rapids Catholic Central, 19-1, 18-5 and 18-3 (Regional Final) over No. 9 Caledonia, 18-5 over No. 5 Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart, 11-10 and 13-5 over Division 1 No. 1 Rockford.
Players to watch: Liza Elder, sr. A (111 goals 71 assists); Lexie Duca, jr. A (28 goals, 9 assists); Lindsay Duca, soph. A (46 goals, 46 assists); Elle O’Connell, sr. M (21 goals, 11 assists); Auden Bargar-Elliot, soph. M (54 goals, 6 assists); Jane Goodspeed, sr. D (1 goal).
Outlook: The Pioneers have only five losses over the last four seasons and none against Michigan teams since 2011 as they go for a fourth-straight MHSAA title. In addition to beating top-ranked Rockford twice, East Grand Rapids was 6-0 against other teams ranked among the top 10 in Division 1 at the end of the regular season. Elder’s 182 points heading into this week were the third-most all-time in MHSAA history for one season, and she has more than 300 points over the last two seasons. Goodspeed joined her on the all-state first team last season, while O’Connell and Lindsay Duca made the second team and Lexie Duca earned an honorable mention. Elder will continue her career at Northwestern University.
PHOTO: East Grand Rapids’ Liza Elder, middle, prepares for a face-off during last season’s Division 2 Final win against Okemos.
Playing with Purpose
May 18, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Lauren Hooker gets up for every lacrosse game. She and her teammates will dress the same for school, send each other pump-up messages throughout the day and carry that momentum into the locker room and onto the field.
But she admits she plays her best against her toughest opponents.
“It’s playing to their level. Playing someone good forces you to step up and play the best,” Hooker said. “It brings the best out of you. I don’t enjoy playing some of the really easy teams as much.”
The East Grand Rapids senior loves a challenge. And she’s helping the Pioneers blaze through a few of them in this, her final high school season, before joining the Marquette University program this fall.
East Grand Rapids has started this season 20-0. The Pioneers are ranked No. 1 both in Division 2 and regardless of division based on the computer rankings supplied by LaxPower.com. And they are doing so with only two seniors – although Hooker, who received a Second Half High 5 this week, gives the team a star at the top that few teams in Michigan can counter.
Playing attack, she’s scored 101 goals -- already third-most for a single season in the MHSAA record book, and more than 25 percent of her team's total. Add in her 33 assists, and her 134 total points are fifth in MHSAA history for one season.
And indeed, she’s been at her best against the best. Hooker had three goals and three assists in an 11-9 win last week over No. 2-ranked Grand Rapids Catholic Central. She scored seven goals in each of two games against Division 1 No. 5 Rockford, and had nine goals in Monday’s 17-8 win over Division 1 No. 2 Hartland.
“She’s what I’d call sneaky quick. Basically, she doesn’t take a big wind-up in her shot; it looks like she’s cradling, looking to pass. And then she just puts it past the goalie,” Pioneers coach Rich Axtell said. “Some players take a different approach, but she’s deceptive. She’s got really good stick control. When she’s in close, she can make you feel pretty slow by comparison.”
Hooker has been on a quest after being part of teams that have lost either in the first or second rounds of Regionals her first three seasons. The last two, the Pioneers ended with defeats by the eventual MHSAA champions. A year ago, they lost 14-13 in double overtime to eventual Finals winner Grand Rapids Catholic Central.
But there’s no question in Axtell's mind that Hooker has brought her game up a level this spring. That effort began in September, when she hit the weight room for training that continued all winter.
Hooker said she started those sessions in part to bring the team together early, especially with so many young players joining the program. Axtell said he thinks part of that drive also came with getting the scholarship to Marquette, which will begin as an NCAA program in 2013.
“She’s really playing with a lot more purpose,” Axtell said.
Hooker first was a golfer, before quitting that sport until taking it up again as a freshman in high school. In the fall, she was the low scorer on the Pioneers golf team that finished eighth at the Division 3 Final, and she missed the individual top 10 by only two strokes.
But lacrosse has been her number one since she first picked up the game during third and fourth grades. “A huge tomboy,” Hooker learned the game from a boy who lived in her neighborhood. After attending a couple of boys clinics, her mom found a girls team for her in the Forest Hills area.
Her mom and group of others then organized an East Grand Rapids youth team that Hooker joined for a few years before jumping up to the Pioneers’ varsity lineup as a freshman.
This offseason she accepted the challenge to set a championship standard. She hopes to leave high school next month having helped the Pioneers win their first MHSAA lacrosse title – with the groundwork for more to come as she moves on.
“I have a lot of hope for the program to continue to do so well,” Hooker said. “Hopefully when I’m gone, people will carry on doing so well.”
Click to read more about Hooker's future plans and lacrosse influences.
PHOTOS: East Grand Rapids' Lauren Hooker (14) has scored 101 goals this season (Photos courtesy of East Grand Rapids lacrosse.).