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.”
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.
Keeper Hopes to Help North Muskegon Take Championship Step
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
May 26, 2021
Syann Fairfield says she won’t let anything stop her from leading her team to the Division 4 girls soccer championship.
But don’t take her word for it. Look at her actions.
The last time North Muskegon’s girls soccer team was making a tournament run, Fairfield suffered a nasty eye injury early in the second half of a 2019 Regional championship game win over Houghton Lake.
“I went down to grab the ball and took a knee to my eye,” Fairfield recalled with, of all things, a laugh. “I had to come out for a concussion test and to make sure I could see, but then I went right back in. I was not going to let us lose in the Regional Finals because I had to go out.”
Fairfield is the daughter of Jenny DeJohn and Muskegon High School football coach Shane Fairfield, so she grew up as a ball girl and water girl for her dad’s teams and says she learned about toughness and teamwork in the process.
North Muskegon, which is 14-1-1 and ranked No. 1 in Division 4, hopes that the experience of Fairfield and the team’s other seven seniors will be enough to lift the Norse to the school’s first soccer state championship after heartbreaking 1-0 Semifinal losses to Kalamazoo Christian in 2018 and 2019.
“We definitely have a special team,” said senior forward Emily Olsen, one of four senior captains along with defender Sophia Schotts, midfielder Audrey Wilson and forward Hope Johnson.
“We’ve come so close in the past. We’re giving 100 percent every day and hope that makes the difference this time.”
If the popular school of thought holds that a championship soccer team starts in the back with the goalkeeper and defense, then the top-ranked Norse might just be ready to break through.
Fairfield, who first-year head coach Caleb Parnin calls “one of the greatest athletes that North Muskegon has ever had,” is a dominant, 6-foot-1 keeper and the final line of defense for a team that has allowed just four goals all season.
Fairfield benefits from a pair of standout defenders in Schotts and junior Grace Vander Woude, but the real secret of this North Muskegon team is the combination of great senior leadership and up-and-coming and talented underclassmen at every position.
Fairfield, an all-state middle hitter who will play volleyball next year at Ferris State, injured her ankle late in the basketball season and missed the first several weeks of this soccer season. But she used that time to mentor freshman keeper Emma Lamiman.
The same is true at midfield, where the dominant Wilson missed time earlier this month with an ankle injury, forcing promising freshmen Spencer Zizak and Allie Jensen to be thrown into the heat of the battle.
The leaders up front are the lethal 1-2 combination of Johnson, the leading scorer with 25 goals and 16 assists, and Olsen, whose powerful right leg has produced 19 goals and 18 assists. Among the youngsters learning from those two everyday are sophomores Natalie Pannucci (11 goals, 6 assists) and Jaley Schultz and freshman Kennedi Koekkoek – who scored the most memorable goal of the season with two seconds remaining to salvage a 2-2 tie against No. 2-ranked Lansing Christian.
“When I was out, Spencer and Allie stepped up and now they’re both playing with so much confidence,” said Wilson, who was still taking it easy at Tuesday’s practice. “So, sometimes injuries help the team in the long run, but I will definitely be back and ready to go.”
The Norse suffered their only loss of the season against visiting Division 1 school Holland West Ottawa, 1-0, on April 24, a game in which Johnson did not play.
The tie against Lansing Christian came on May 17, when the Norse found themselves trailing 2-0 at halftime. Johnson cut the lead in half with a goal on a penalty kick, before the harried final moments, when Schotts put a shot on goal and Koekkoek converted the rebound just before time expired.
North Muskegon played its last game May 21, a tight 2-1 win at Ludington. With no conference tournament in the West Michigan Conference, the Norse will have an 11-day layoff before their District opener June 1.
“Honestly, we’re excited to have this extra practice time, because our coaching staff really thinks we can bring these girls to the next level,” said Parnin, who is assisted by Chris Wilson, Pete Johnson, Adam Schultz and Kim Gorbach – the program’s junior varsity and goalkeeper coach.
Parnin, a 2003 North Muskegon graduate who played collegiate soccer at Trinity International University near Chicago, returned home in the fall of 2019 to teach English at his alma mater. The plan was to serve a one-year apprenticeship as Ryan Berends’ assistant, before COVID-19 wiped out last spring’s season.
Parnin, who compared coaching this year’s talented team with “being handed the keys to a Corvette,” has made a point of getting more girls out for soccer. His work is paying dividends with 34 high school girls soccer players, nearly double the number from 2019, with the ability to field a junior varsity team.
While the future looks bright for the program, right now everyone’s focus is on this year’s tournament – where another potential showdown with No. 3-ranked Kalamazoo Christian looms, as well as a possible rematch against Lansing Christian in the Final on June 19 at Michigan State University.
If those clashes come to fruition, Parnin is well aware they could be decided by a shootout, in which case he feels very confident with Fairfield in the net.
“I couldn’t trust anyone more than I trust Syann,” said Parnin. “When we do our penalty kick drills, Syann wins. I mean, she shuts it down.
“She has the size and athletic ability, but she also has that intangible quality of a great athlete where she welcomes the challenge.”
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) North Muskegon senior keeper Syann Fairfield boots the ball during a game against Holland West Ottawa. The Norse have allowed just four goals in 16 games this spring. (Middle) North Muskegon senior captain Emily Olsen, who has 19 goals and 18 assists, leaps before making a play on the ball. (Below) Norse senior captain Audrey Wilson, who has 16 goals and 10 assists, battles for possession of the ball. (Photos by Rhonda Kinahan.)