Comeback Crusaders Come Through

June 14, 2014

By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half

MASON – It was not a premonition, but Hudsonville Unity Christian girls soccer coach Randy Heethuis picked the right tape to show his players at a team dinner Friday night.

It might have provided the added spark needed as Unity Christian rallied from a 1-0 halftime deficit to defeat Detroit Country Day 3-1 on Saturday in the MHSAA Division 3 championship game at Mason High School.

It was the Crusaders’ eighth championship in the past 10 years and first since 2012.

“At our team dinner, we watched a tape of the 2012 Final that we were down 1-0 at halftime,” Heethuis said, “so we went into halftime and said, ‘This looks vaguely familiar. We just watched this last night.’

“I said, ‘Girls, we’re going to come back and win this one, too,’ and sure enough, they did it.”

Both teams came into the Final riding impressive defensive streaks. Unity Christian had allowed only one goal in its previous six tournament games, while Country Day had an eight-game shutout streak, including blank sheet the past six in the tournament.

So a 1-0 halftime lead in a game that featured just three shots on goal in the first half seemed somewhat safe. However, Unity Christian began the second half with more intensity after the halftime speech from Heethuis.

“At the end of the first half, we started putting a little more pressure on them,” he said. “We had probably three really good opportunities that just hit wide, and at halftime we talked about it. I said, ‘Girls, we’re OK.’ I asked them to believe, and I asked them to come out and play the hardest 40 minutes of their lives.”

The first payoff came in the 51st minute when senior forward Aubrey Schierbeek took a corner kick and scored from the left side. She was deep in the box, and the ball went over the head of the goalkeeper and fell into the far end of the net.

“I didn’t call it,” said Schierbeek, who is one of four Unity Christian players who are slated to play at Spring Arbor University. “Honestly, I didn’t think it was going to go in until I saw it in the back of the net.”

The goal came moments after a flurry in front of the net created the corner-kick opportunity, and Heethuis pointed out the importance of that part of the game.

“Tessa Glashower won a nice ball there, and she took a shot that the keeper tipped over the top that won that corner for us,” he said. “It’s the little things like that – the kid who steps up and makes a play that wins a corner for you is huge.”

Schierbeek struck again 16 minutes later for the tie-breaking goal from right in front of the net.

“Coach told me in a previous game that you’re not going to get a chance to dribble it around, so when you get the open shot, take it, and that’s exactly what I did,” said Shierbeek, whose two goals gave her 32 this season. “I had the opening, and I took the shot, and it happened to go in.”

With a 2-1 lead, the Crusaders had all the momentum, and just two minutes later Schierbeek assisted on a goal by Rachel Roerig, a junior forward who scored from in front of the net.

“Once we were level, I think the girls just relaxed a little bit, and then our intensity level really picked up,” Heethuis said. “Then we got a glimpse of watching us attack the way we’re capable of attacking.”

Unity Christian (23-1) finished with a 13-3 edge in shots on goal in the second half and finished with a 14-5 advantage. Country Day (21-4-3) had two shots on goal in the first four minutes of the game, including a goal by senior Michelle Manning, who took a rebound and scored from the left part of the box.

“I kind of broke in and didn’t have many options,” she said. “The goalie did a good job of covering the near post - and far actually when she stepped out - and I froze for a second and then tried to slip it by her,” said Manning, who plans to continue playing soccer at Northwestern. “I couldn’t slip it by her, so I kind of tried to poke it past her. It didn’t really work out, but it came right back at me and I put it in.

“Unity Christian came out a lot stronger than us in the second half. I felt like they kind of put us on our heels, and it took us a hard time to adjust.”

Unity Christian goalkeeper Abby Veeneman had four saves as the Crusaders held their opponent to fewer than two goals for the 22nd time in the 24-game season.

“I was a little worried when we were behind, but I have a lot of confidence in my team that we can come back,” said Veeneman, who plans to next go to Australia to do mission work with a youth group. “Our team knows how to defend well. They communicate, and they work good together.”

It was a tough defeat for Country Day, which was chasing its sixth MHSAA championship and first since 2004, which came against Unity Christian in the title game.

“Unity is an excellent team – an excellent team – and they’re the better team than we are,” Country Day coach Bob Bukari said. ”They have more weapons, they’re well coached, they’re well organized, they are strong in goal, they’re strong defensively.

“… Unity deserved the victory without a doubt. We hit the crossbar, and we could have scored a second goal in the first half that would have changed the whole complexity of the game. But we didn’t put our chances away, and they buried theirs.”

Click for the full box score. 

PHOTOS: (Top) Unity Christian's Aubrey Schierbeek (22) pushes the ball ahead while Country Day's Libby Ronchetto (11) pursues. (Middle) Schierbeek and Bethany Balcer celebrate during Saturday's Division 3 Final.

North Muskegon Surges Again to Cap Storybook Season

By Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com

June 19, 2021

EAST LANSING – Caleb Parnin has been playing a little mind game on his North Muskegon girls soccer team all season long.

“We’ve been telling the girls all year that we are a second-half team,” said Parnin. “Honestly, part of that is just brainwashing them to believe it, and then hoping they make it a reality.”

It proved to be masterful strategy by the first-year coach, as the Norse worked their second-half magic again Saturday. They turned a 1-0 halftime lead into a 5-0 runaway over Royal Oak Shrine Catholic in the MHSAA Division 4 Final at Michigan State University’s DeMartin Soccer Complex, clinching the first Finals championship in program history.

Hope Johnson, NM’s senior leader and top scorer, set up sophomore Jaley Schulz for the lone goal of the first half in brilliant fashion – then started the second-half onslaught with a breakaway goal seven minutes after the restart.

Emily Olsen, Katie Kinahan and Audrey Wilson also tallied for North Muskegon, which finished with a 20-1-1 record.

Johnson, who has played with many of these teammates since she was 4 years old, said they were excited for the chance to play on the state’s biggest stage.

“We were always waiting for the next challenge and for the opportunity to show what we can do,” said Johnson, who added two assists to finish with 37 goals and 23 assists this spring. “Today was that day.”

North Muskegon dominated the game, finishing with a 22-6 edge in total shots and a 12-2 advantage in shots on goal.

That performance was a continuation from the second half of Wednesday’s Semifinal win over top-ranked Grandville Calvin Christian, when the Norse scored two goals after halftime in a 2-0 win. NM allowed only one second-half goal the entire season.

Royal Oak Shrine, which was the reigning Division 4 champion after downing Kalamazoo Christian 4-0 in the 2019 Final, finished 14-4-1 and lost its first game since April.

The Knights played their best soccer in the final 20 minutes of the first half, controlling play for a long stretch after Schulz’s opening goal.

Shrine was ultimately denied by the Norsemen’s stingy defense, led by senior Sophia Schotts and junior Grace VanderWoude. The other defensive leaders for NM were junior Molly Stewart and freshmen Abby Martinez and Kennedi Koekkoek.

North Muskegon soccer“This season was something special,” said 21st-year Shrine coach Mark Soma, who had just three senior starters. “Things got away from us in the second half, and a lot of that had to do with being young and tired and making mistakes.”

On the rare occasions that the Knights got past the Norse defense and had scoring opportunities, NM senior keeper Syann Fairfield shut the door.

Fairfield, the daughter of Muskegon High School football coach Shane Fairfield, showed her toughness by coming well out of her box and challenging shots repeatedly.

“Syann is so tough, and she was determined to get that shutout,” said Parnin, who is assisted by Chris Wilson, Pete Johnson, Adam Schulz and goalkeeper coach Kim Gorbach. “She senses things and goes out and stops them before they happen. Nothing she does surprises me.”

The early part of the game was played in a steady rain, but by early in the second half the rain had moved out, leaving dry and extremely calm conditions.

It was a perfect stage for Johnson to work her magic, repeatedly drawing Shrine’s defenders to her with her breakaway speed and then dropping the ball off to her teammates. A perfect example came on the opening goal, when Johnson dribbled the ball across the goal mouth, bringing Shrine’s keeper with her, then slid it back to Schulz, who was unmarked, for an easy goal.

“Hope just finagled her way around a couple of defenders, like she does, got the goalie out of position and left it for me,” explained Schulz. “I just tapped it in.”

It was fitting that three of NM’s senior captains scored goals (Johnson, Olsen and Wilson), while the fourth – Schotts – led the defensive effort.

While the season had a storybook finish with the school’s first Finals championship, it was understandably bittersweet.

“This is such a great group of girls, and we all love each other so much,” said Johnson. “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do not seeing them all the time.”

Click for the full box score.

PHOTOS: (Top) North Muskegon’s girls soccer team celebrates its first Finals championship Saturday at MSU. (Middle) The Norse’s Natalie Pannucci (4) moves the ball ahead amid the midday downpour.