D2 Soccer Final: Marian Takes Top Spot
June 16, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
WILLIAMSTON – Bloomfield Hills Marian seniors Makenzie Larson, Alexa Finger and Hanna Pateryn were set to give everything they had this season, their last of high school soccer.
But after graduating 13 players from the 2011 team, and then adding six freshmen, the trio had no idea what they were getting themselves into this spring.
Turns out, it was a third MHSAA championship in four seasons.
Thanks in part to two goals by one of those freshmen, midfielder Kelly Sweeney, Marian downed reigning champion Plainwell 3-1 in Saturday’s Division 2 Final.
“Just to come back with all these freshmen; they worked so hard to keep these three seniors around to the very end,” Larson said. “All these underclassmen that stepped up for us, they brought so much energy to the team. They did an amazing job.”
Larson and Finger were on the Mustangs for all three championships, while Pateryn joined for the 2010 win. Total, Marian has won four MHSAA titles, all over the last decade.
The Mustangs (22-2-1) also had two sophomores this season. One, midfielder Julia Griessmann, got her team on the board 7:55 into the game.
The chances kept coming for both teams. Total, Marian outshot Plainwell 13-10, but the Mustangs capitalized with Sweeney’s two goals during the first nine minutes of the second half.
The Trojans (21-3-2) – which returned 15 players from last season’s title-winning team – did get on the board on junior Hope Pell’s goal with just less than 22 minutes to play. But they couldn’t come up with enough opportunities down the stretch to make it closer.
“I love my group,” Plainwell coach Chad Wiseman said. “They battled from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. We had some chances, and in a state title game you’ve probably got to capitalize on those chances.”
Larson has signed to play next season at Loyola University of California. Pateryn has signed to play at Northern Kentucky, while Finger will go to Butler University on an academic scholarship. The multitude of juniors and underclassmen certainly played a large part in this championship, but coach Barry Brodsky said it came down to the leadership of his three seniors coming off last season’s District opener loss.
“We made a point as a coaching staff to really stay on the seniors we have. These are quality kids and they bought in," he said. “If the seniors don’t buy in, you’re not going anywhere. But from the first day until last night at practice, they were all in 100 percent of the time.”
PHOTO: Bloomfield Hills Marian's Mackenzie Pohlman (13) battles for the ball with Plainwell's Makenzie Evers during Saturday's Division 2 Final at Williamston High School.
US District Court Approves Realignment of UP Teams to Statewide MHSAA Soccer Tournament
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 18, 2023
Upper Peninsula teams playing boys and girls soccer will have the opportunity to participate in a statewide Michigan High School Athletic Association Tournament beginning with the 2023-24 school year after the U.S. federal court in the Western District of Michigan granted on Wednesday, Aug. 16, a joint petition to adjust that portion of the 2000s seasons litigation compliance plan that had required Upper Peninsula boys and girls soccer teams to play in opposite seasons from their Lower Peninsula counterparts.
The petition, filed together by the MHSAA and Communities for Equity, requested that Upper Peninsula soccer teams’ postseason tournaments be realigned with those of the Lower Peninsula soccer teams, such that boys teams be allowed to play with Lower Peninsula teams in a fall statewide MHSAA Boys Soccer Tournament and Upper Peninsula girls teams be allowed to play with Lower Peninsula teams in a spring statewide MHSAA Girls Soccer Tournament.
Almost 20 years ago, the federal court had assigned a separate Upper Peninsula boys tournament for the spring and a separate Upper Peninsula girls tournament for the fall as part of the compliance plan emerging from litigation in a lawsuit filed by Communities for Equity in 1998. The resulting compliance plan, with Lower Peninsula boys soccer season in fall and girls soccer in spring and Upper Peninsula girls soccer season in fall and boys soccer in spring, was put into place beginning with the 2007-08 school year.
However, the different seasons for Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula soccer proved unworkable. To realize a full regular season, both boys and girls Upper Peninsula soccer teams at that time instead chose to play during the same regular seasons as their Lower Peninsula counterparts, forgoing participation in an Upper Peninsula-only MHSAA Tournament that was offered consistent with the original compliance plan.
Totals of 13,221 boys and 11,921 girls played on MHSAA member high school soccer teams statewide during the 2022-23 school year. This decision means that hundreds of Upper Peninsula girls and boys soccer players will have the opportunity to have a meaningful regular season and play in a statewide postseason soccer tournament.
“This is great news for our member schools, especially those soccer programs in our Upper Peninsula. We appreciate the partnership on this issue with Communities for Equity, in particular President Diane Madsen, working together in a spirit of cooperation and common sense in making this positive change for soccer players in our state” said MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.3 million spectators each year.