GPN Gives Extraordinary Ending to Unimaginable Run with 1st Finals Title

By Perry A. Farrell
Special for MHSAA.com

June 16, 2023

EAST LANSING – Grosse Pointe North girls soccer coach Olivia Dallaire sent a special thank you to her co-workers at Grosse Pointe Beaumont Hospital Friday afternoon after her team claimed its first MHSAA Finals title at DeMartin Stadium.

“I played four years here on this field (at Michigan State) and four years as a player at Grosse Pointe North,’’ Dallaire said. “I’m very speechless. I’m at a loss for words. I couldn’t get it done as a senior in the state championship game. I’m so proud of these girls that they were able to bring it home.

“I did have to go to work today,” the nurse anesthetist added, “but my co-workers allowed me to work half a shift and covered for me.’’

The Norsemen earned a 3-2 edge in a shootout to clinch a 3-2 win over East Grand Rapids in the Division 2 championship game. After winning just one game in the Macomb Area Conference Red this spring and entering the postseason with four victories total, the Norsemen capped their first championship run at 10-7-7 – proving it’s good to get hot at the right time.

The winning kick in the shootout came from senior Mia Stephanoff. Goalkeeper Grace McCormick did the rest, stopping two shots by EGR with another flying over the goal.

“I always pick the same side because I practice it every day,’’ said Stephanoff. “I know I’m good at it and I know I can make it, even when they guess right, which she did. When I saw her I said ‘Oh God.’

North was down 2-0, but Dallaire changed the offense in the second half and McCormick was phenomenal in goal.

East Grand Rapids’ Reese Lynn (16) and North’s Amelia Streberger battle for possession. “We’ve been down 2-0 before,’’ said Stephanoff. “In our Regional Semifinal against (Bloomfield Hills) Marian we were down 2-0. It wasn’t really that big. We knew we could come back.’’

East Grand Rapids twins Gracie and Reese Lynn are freshmen and destined to be stars. They scored the first two goals for the Pioneers to stake them to a 2-0 lead.

East Grand Rapids (18-3-3) was seeking its first championship since 2002 and finished third in the Ottawa-Kent Conference White this spring, while Grosse Pointe North was fifth in the MAC Red and had finished Division 1 runner-up in 2008 when Dallaire was a junior.

On cue, the Lynn sisters combined for the first goal of the game just less than 11 minutes in when Gracie took a pass from Reese and blasted a shot from 19 yards out into the right-side corner of the net.

After being dragged down by a Norsemen defender, Reese was granted a penalty kick. She didn’t disappoint as she drilled the shot to make it 2-0 after 13 minutes.

GPN responded when freshman Meredith Dodenhoff scored off an assist from junior midfielder Amelia Streberger from just outside the box with 15:10 left in the first half to make it 2-1.

The Norsemen then tied the score with just under 15 minutes left in regulation when Alyssa Burney’s corner kick was mishandled and bounced into the net for an own goal.

Neither team scored over 20 minutes over overtime, although EGR got close during the second half of the extra period when Margaret Periard had a shot that drifted just right of the net.

Gabby Miller followed an opening shootout miss by EGR by sending her shot into the net. Reese Lynn tied the shootout 1-1, and the Pioneers went up 2-1 on Toki Budelmann’s make. But Streberger tied it at 2-2, and Stephanoff decided it on GPN’s next kick.

There was added history to the Norseman’s first title. Since at least 1991 – the farthest back published results include team records – no girls soccer team had advanced to an MHSAA Final with fewer than 10 wins until GPN and Clarkston Everest Collegiate in Division 4 both did so this week.

“This means so much to me and my team,’’ said McCormick. “This whole year we’ve been the underdog. We worked so hard. So many players have improved. It’s been a really great season. We did the same thing against Marian. I loved that we didn’t give up.’’

Click for the full summary.

PHOTOS (Top) Grosse Pointe North keeper Grace McCormick dives to her right to make the game-clinching save Friday. (Middle) East Grand Rapids’ Reese Lynn (16) and North’s Amelia Streberger battle for possession. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)

Kalamazoo Christian Building on Lessons Learned during 2022 Finals Run

By Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com

May 16, 2023

KALAMAZOO — During her freshman year, Elizabeth Netz was settling in on the Kalamazoo Christian junior varsity soccer team as a defender, gelling with her teammates with thoughts of one day playing on varsity.

Southwest CorridorThose days came sooner than the now-junior expected.

“When she was a freshman, we had no goalkeeper,” varsity head coach Jay Allen said. “JV had no goalkeeper either and would rotate kids in goal. One day I watched her in net and asked her if she would like to be the varsity goalkeeper.

“Elizabeth is very quiet and she probably, deep down inside, said ‘No.’ Since she didn’t outwardly say ‘No,’ I drafted her and she has been the varsity goalkeeper since her freshman year and has grown and kept us in games.”

Each game was a learning experience for Netz, who had no real experience in goal.

“I was very, very nervous,” she said of that first year. “I’m a very quiet, introverted person, but on the field I’m more confident to say ‘Hey, do this, do that’ and yell through the whole game.

“I definitely got better at yelling.”

After falling just short in the Division 4 championship game last season, a 1-0 heartbreaker to Royal Oak Shrine Catholic, Netz and her teammates are learning from that experience.

The Comets have allowed just 13 goals so far this year and take a 12-4 record into the final weeks of the regular season.

Senior Taylor Leonard, the team’s leading scorer with 25 goals, said a key is team cohesiveness.

“The team isn’t going to thrive off of one person,” she said. “Everybody has a super pivotal role, even if they don’t get in a lot, as long as they’re on the bench and encouraging.

“That’s huge for the overall success of the team.”

Allen said Leonard, who hopes to play soccer at Hope College, leads by example.

Taylor Leonard leads the Comets’ charge upfield. “When there’s an issue on or off the field, you see her leading the way,” he said. “She’s a little reserved, but for those of us who know her, she’s a go-getter.”

Sophomore Jordyn Bonnema sets up many of Leonard’s goals.

“Jordyn’s talent is she can see things happening before they even happen,” Allen said.

“When the ball’s played to her, Jordyn’s already seen where that ball’s going to be three plays later. She may get rid of the ball, but three plays later the ball’s back at her feet.”

Bonnema has come a long way from the days when her parents signed her up for youth soccer.

“I think I was really bad when I was young,” she said. “My parents said I usually just stood and watched the ball.”

She has blossomed since then, not only becoming a force in soccer, but earning first-team all-state honors this year in both golf and basketball.

One thing she said the team learned from last season’s run to the Final is “the work you put in at the beginning of the season is really something that really pays off at the end.

“We all push each other and have the integrity to hold each other accountable – to be able to know we’re all working toward the same goal. At the end of the day, you’re working for the people that are next to you.”

Netz said that encouragement is a big motivator.

“Letting people know it’s ok to make mistakes. We just need to turn around and give everything into it,” she said. “We play for the glory of the team and for the glory of God.”

Tough competition always pays off

Allen always sets a competitive schedule to get the players prepared for postseason play.

“We play a tough out-of-conference schedule,” he said. “We take (a few lumps). We’ve played against some stronger Division 3 teams that, although the score doesn’t reflect it, we played really well.

“Having a very young back line and lineup, it shows our weaknesses, which then we can then tweak.”

Kalamazoo Christian girls soccer coach Jay Allen.In spite of the “lumps,” Leonard said the team never gives up.

“In those games, we’re known to be relentless, even though we’re playing in these super competitive games with these strong teams,” she said.

“Everybody gives 110-percent effort. That also contributes at how well we do at the end of the season because we had to face many tough games throughout the season.”

The Comets have a three-pronged attack in Leonard, Bonnema and senior Chloe Lehman.

“When the three of them work together, it forces the rest of the team to fall into different spots,” Allen said. “We have some very good players like (senior) Annika Sytsma, (junior) Mackenzie Ling, (freshman) Izzy Suloff, (sophomore) Maysen Steensma, who all raise their level of play when the energy is high for the other three.

“This is truly a team. You can say Taylor, Jordyn and Chloe are the backbone, but the others are the muscle. They are what truly allows the other three to have the kind of success they have.”

Other seniors on the team are Maggie de Jong, Rylan Smith, Lillian Klooster and Halee Taylor.

Juniors are Sophia Nash, Phoebe Zeyl and Kate Watson.

The young team also includes sophomores Hannah Hoeksema, Annelise de Jong, Alaina Klooster, Rachel Miller and Kailey Triemstra plus freshmen Aubrie Lehman and Emilee Dyk.

Good fun, great lessons

All of Allen’s assistants are former K-Christian players and no doubt had a hand in some of the traditional pranks the girls play on him.

“It actually started with Jordyn’s mom (Candace Bonnema) when she Saran-wrapped my car and  covered it in flour 28 years ago,” Allen laughed.

“She leads the school in yellow cards in a season with nine, and she started everything. Every year since, somebody has done something to me.”

Jordyn Bonnema (7) navigates among Hackett defenders.The coach takes it all in good fun.

“Either they make a T-shirt of me with a funny face or they put raccoons in my car, and I’m deathly afraid of raccoons. I don’t know what they’re planning to do this year.”

Allen, who is a self-confessed Army brat, grew up in Madrid, Spain, and came to the United States when he was 18 to attend Western Michigan University.

He became an assistant to Comets coach Ron Smilanich 28 years ago, then took over the head coaching job 10 years ago.

He began coaching the boys team in 2010 and still keeps in touch with many former players.

“I average about three weddings and a baptism a year,” he said. “The impact I get to have on both the young ladies and men in this environment is fantastic.

Included in that group are current assistants Sarah Onderlinde, Emma Bertrand, Jenna Blackwell, Maegan Kilgus and Lauryn Mohney.

“One of the big things I like to do is teach them teamwork, teach them responsibility, being on time, working to those positions, how to deal with different personalities,” Allen said.

“One day, your boss is going to be ‘me,’ my generation, and you’re going to have to know how to deal with ‘me.’ How do you resolve a conflict on the team, how do you work together? We provide them with different tools.”

Pam ShebestPam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Kalamazoo Christian keeper Elizabeth Netz puts the ball back in play during a game against Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep. (2) Taylor Leonard leads the Comets’ charge upfield. (3) Kalamazoo Christian girls soccer coach Jay Allen. (4) Jordyn Bonnema (7) navigates among Hackett defenders. (Action photos by Dan Cooke; head shot by Pam Shebest.)