![Hudsonville Unity Christian soccer](/sites/default/files/2022-04/220421_Unity_2H.jpg)
Heethuis Retires from Unity Boys, Readying Another Girls Title Contender
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
April 21, 2022
HUDSONVILLE – Randy Heethuis has cut his coaching workload in half.
The longtime and successful Unity Christian soccer coach announced last month that he’ll be stepping down from the boys program after 28 years at the helm.
Heethuis is still coaching the girls squad this spring, however, after a health scare last fall altered his priorities.
Heethuis suffered a small stroke following the boys season in October and underwent heart surgery in November to close a hole in his heart.
“When something like that occurs in your life, it causes you to take a step back and reflect a little bit and reprioritize things,” said Heethuis, who guided the boys to five state championships and seven Finals appearances during his tenure.
“As far as I know it’s all good and I’m feeling great, but it’s one of those medical experiences that at my age causes you to reevaluate.”
Heethuis, who turns 60 in a couple months, said he also felt the desire to spend more time with his growing family.
His fifth grandchild was recently born, with another one on the way this fall.
“Just being more accessible to spend time with them and be able to help out with them and go to their games,” Heethuis said. “That was also a big piece of the equation, and as long as I’ve been doing this it gets tougher and tougher. I just felt like all things considered, and at my age, that it was becoming increasingly more difficult for me to give 100 percent to both programs.”
“It was an extremely difficult decision, but I just really felt that this is what I was being led to and it’s been a great run,” Heethuis said. “I’ve enjoyed 28 years doing that, and over the years I’ve really been blessed to have some fine families and awesome siblings to coach.
“It was a real blessing for me to coach that long, but I just felt like someone a little younger and with more energy might have an opportunity to put their stamp on the program and to carry the torch moving forward.”
Heethuis has been asked why he decided to keep coaching the girls and not the boys.
There wasn’t any strong reasoning behind it other than he began his career coaching the girls at Unity 33 years ago.
“I coached the girls for five years before taking on the boys, and this is a nice way to bookend a coaching career,” Heethuis said. “I’m not sure how long the good Lord will bless me to continue (with) the girls, but for the foreseeable future I would like to continue in that respect. Only time will tell.”
Heethuis (502-90-52) ranks among the winningest coaches in MHSAA boys soccer history and tops the list for girls coaches (579-102-38) having also led the Crusaders girls to 10 Finals championships.
The girls opened this season with a tough 1-0 loss to a talented Hudsonville squad, but are unbeaten since.
“I was pleased with how hard our girls competed and played hard and battled, but unfortunately, we came up one goal short,” Heethuis said. “Those are the types of games, as a coach, you hope will make you better moving forward.”
Unity, which is led by returning players Morgan Scholten (goalkeeper), Brianna Rose, Jessie Postma, Jenna Schreiber, Laura Moberg, Jade Taylor, Kyah VanKoevering and Molly Vollink, reached the Division 3 Semifinals last season before losing to Boyne City in a shootout.
“Last year this group snuck up on some people and had a great year,” Heethuis said. “The only game we lost was in the state Semifinal and we were two or three minutes away from making it to the Finals.
“I think we have to try and build on that and hopefully the girls have a hunger for getting back there and wanting to do that again and take it a step further.”
Rose, a junior, believes this year's team can replicate last year's success.
"We have a lot of potential," she said. "We have great additions and returning girls on the team. So far, you can see the motivation in everyone from last season’s tough loss. Everyone on the team shows up and works hard not only for themselves, but more importantly for each other.
"We want to win another state title. Who wouldn’t? And hopefully we can make the season last as long as it can. What I think sets our team apart from the rest is the bond and hard work we do for ourselves and each other with the main goal of honoring our Lord."
The Crusaders have a balanced mix of returning players and newcomers who will attempt to keep the program’s commitment to excellence intact.
“It’s early, but the chemistry on this team is really good and it’s a fun group to be around,” Heethuis said. “We will hopefully take it one game at a time and get better as the season goes on, because there’s real potential there to get it all put together by the end of the year. We hope to do it sooner than later.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for four years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Unity Christian soccer coach Randy Heethuis and his boys team prepare for the kickoff of the 2018 Division 3 Final. (Middle) Heethuis accepts the Division 3 championship trophy with his girls team in 2016. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
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Notre Dame Prep Caps Year of Memories
July 1, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
So many details of Pontiac Notre Dame Prep’s first girls soccer championship run were memorable this spring, it’s sure to not be quickly forgotten in a community that’s had its share of sports success over the years.
Start with the series of tournament opponents the Fighting Irish had to conquer on the way to the Division 2 Final at Michigan State University – arguably the toughest postseason path of any team in any division with No. 1 DeWitt, No. 4 Bloomfield Hills Marian, No. 8 Warren Regina and No. 14 Fenton standing in the way.
And it all finished with a championship game filled with unexpected and unlikely heroics – but just the right mix to give Notre Dame Prep a 2-1 win over Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern at DeMartin Stadium.
The Applebee’s Team of the Month for June is continuing to relish an experience that's included the return of alumni to support the team in East Lansing and continued congratulations for the latest power to ascend from Oakland County's accomplished soccer community.
“It’s hard to maintain it, especially in this area; getting out of the District is a challenge in itself,” said coach Jim Stachura, who finished his seventh season with the girls team and was part of the staff when Troy’s boys won Division 1 in 2003. “But there’s an expectation to win now that wasn’t there in the past. The first year we made the Final (in 2013, which ended with a loss in Division 3 to Grand Rapids South Christian), it was very much a learning process, not just for the girls, but for the staff. I believe you have to learn to win before you go and win, and we’re expecting to stay up at that level.”
The Fighting Irish closed this spring with a 21-1-3 record after entering the postseason among the favorites with the No. 3 ranking in the final coaches association Division 2 regular-season poll.
They had opened the season with ties against Flint Powers Catholic (the eventual Division 3 runner-up) and Madison Heights Bishop Foley, and the lone loss came 1-0 to Marian in Detroit Catholic League play.
But that defeat to the five-time MHSAA champion Mustangs – who Notre Dame Prep would see again in a Division 2 Semifinal – proved the key to this season’s championship step.
“We looked back right away when the (postseason) draw was made, and we knew it was a really tough draw. But I told them we’d take it one day at a time, and the thing that set the wheels in motion was the loss to Marian in the league,” Stachura said. “We played well that game, and for the first time since I’ve been at NDP, we put it to them. The girls were sitting kinda somber after the game, and I said it was nothing to be ashamed of; from there on … we wanted to get a game against them, and we just started rolling.
“Things fell into place, but I really think we earned it this year. We played everybody. From the start of the season to the end of the season, we were up to the task for everybody except for one day.”
That loss in addition to the two early ties showed Stachura a lot about his leaders this spring – the team could’ve chosen to quit, but did not. But he also saw something promising in how his team won games despite missing players here and there with injuries and illnesses, and “because we were winning and winning not in our comfort zone, I knew we were going to learn from this and this team could be a state contender,” he said.
Fast forward to the incredible events of June 18.
Notre Dame Prep trailed Forest Hills Northern by a goal when junior Payton Williams, a defender, scored her first goal of the entire season on a sharply-shot free kick with 41 seconds left in regulation – and kept the Fighting Irish’s title chase alive.
That unexpected score was followed by overtime and then a move by Stachura that surely surprised those unfamiliar with Notre Dame Prep’s run to that point.
With the Fighting Irish facing a shootout, Stachura replaced his keeper in goal with sweeper Eileen Haig, who had a little more experience in similar situations after formerly playing keeper for her club team. Stachura had made a similar switch when Notre Dame Prep faced – and beat – Regina in a shootout in the Catholic League championship game.
The rest – two saves by Haig including on FHN’s first shot, and goals by her teammates including the winner by senior Rosella LoChirco – will go down as the crowning performance of the school’s most successful sports spring ever.
“It was so cool to be involved in,” Stachura said. “A week later, the time it hit me was when I was in San Diego sitting on the beach, talking to a few college coaches, and they had heard about it. (One asked) are you the one who switched your goalie and put a field player in? Yeah, that was me.
“It was just a good thing. Not just for the girls in our program, but for our area in general; it was good for the area.”
The return of past players was doubly meaningful because they'd played a hand in setting up this latest success.
On the field, the Fighting Irish have won six District titles in Stachura's seven seasons with the program. Off the field, they've received academic all-state honors as a team all seven seasons Stachura has been coach, and did so this spring with a grade-point average was 3.71.
The girls soccer team also continued its work this past year with Clarkston SCAMP, with players serving as camp counselors as part of a summer program for children and young adults with special needs. Those memories always become part of the seniors' final good-byes at the team's annual postseason banquet.
“There’s not a girl who doesn’t say it’s the most rewarding thing,” he said. “(They’ve found) it’s really cool to give some of my fun in my life.”
And the Fighting Irish will have more to share after this history-making season.
Past Teams of the Month, 2015-16:
May: Ithaca girls track & field – Report
April: Lake Orion boys lacrosse – Report
March: Hancock ice hockey – Report
February: Petoskey boys skiing – Report
January: Spring Lake boys swimming & diving – Report
December: Saginaw Heritage girls basketball – Report
November: Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard volleyball – Report
October: Benton Harbor football – Report
September: Mason and Okemos boys soccer – Report
PHOTO: (Top) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep players rush to celebrate the game-winning goal of this season's Division 2 Final. (Middle) The Fighting Irish raise their championship trophy.