Liggett Shoots, Scores first Title since 2005
June 17, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Although his team found itself in an unfamiliar situation Friday afternoon, David Dwaihy had an idea how at least the first part might play out.
As Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett readied for its first tie-breaker shootout of this spring – and in the season’s final game – Dwaihy, the eighth-year coach, decided to simply ask his players to raise their hands if they wanted one of the penalty kicks.
“I had a few in mind who I wanted to take the shot,” Dwaihy said. “I ended up just saying raise your hand if you want one. The hands flew up, and the freshmen all raised their hands.”
And then the most “courageous and bold” of them all finished the Knights’ first MHSAA championship run since she was getting ready to start kindergarten.
Freshman defender Kate Birgbauer was her team’s fourth and final shooter and put her attempt just past the crossbar into the top of the net to give Liggett a 4-2 advantage in the shootout and a 1-0 win over Montrose in the Division 4 championship game at DeMartin Stadium.
Sophomores Kelly Solak and Alexis Wenger and junior Maddie Wu also made kicks as Montrose missed their first two tries, setting Birgbauer up to end the game.
“I love shootouts. I like the pressure,” Birgbauer said. “I actually turned to my friend Izzy (Brusilow, the team’s second-leading scorer this season) and I was like, ‘Are you 100 percent sure you’re going to make this?’ She was like, ‘Oh, I’m not sure,’ so I was like, I’ll take it. So I stepped up and shot it.”
“They’re courageous and a very bold, confident group – especially our center back who scored the winner, Katie Birgbauer,” Dwaihy added. “She wanted it.”
Liggett (19-2-1) won its fifth straight District title to start this run and repeated as Regional champion as well, but hadn’t played in an MHSAA championship game since winning Division 4 in 2005.
Despite their relative youth – the Knights had only three seniors this season – a number of key players gained experience during last season’s run. But they still hadn’t been pushed to this brink during a season in which they gave up only 14 goals.
Montrose (23-4-1), meanwhile, was playing in its first MHSAA championship game in girls soccer after winning its first Regional title, and ended this season giving up only nine goals.
The more upperclassmen-laden Rams went on the attack immediately. Sophomore Remington Hobson broke away at 28:04 in the first half, but Liggett junior keeper Kara Francis jumped in front to deflect the drive away from the goal. Senior Ellory Barnette sent a header over the net off a corner with 14:04 to go in the half, and Liggett sophomore defender Teagan Cornell headed away another Montrose shot midway through the second half that would have found the net had she not dropped back to cover the corner.
The shot differential wasn’t much during regulation, with Montrose tallying nine to Liggett’s eight. But the Rams had 11 corner kicks in the game to Liggett’s one, giving them better opportunities to attack.
“That’s turned out to be our bread and butter this year, set pieces, corners, and we came close,” Montrose coach Jason Perrin said. “If you get 11 of them, you’ve got to put one in.
"But they’re very similar to us – they get 10 girls behind the ball, they clog up the passing lanes. We do that. It was kinda like playing ourselves, a little bit.”
The game appeared over before the shootout, but only for a minute, when a Liggett throw-in landed in the Montrose net with 5:09 to go in the second period of overtime – but the goal was called off because it didn’t touch a player from either team on the way.
“I think that lit a fire in our hearts a bit,” Birgbauer said. “We got mad, and we came back.”
Montrose had more experience in shootouts – they’d gone 1-1 previously, with a win that way over No. 2 Elk Rapids in the Regional Final. But Liggett apparently was plenty prepared despite a lack of shootout experience.
Liggett’s Francis and Montrose senior keeper Alexis Rush both made four saves while controlling play in front of their respective nets. Rush is one of eight seniors who will graduate from the Rams’ most successful team.
“We had a good core coming back. We won 17 games (last season). But we hadn’t won a District since 2001. So it’s hard to dream too much beyond the District or Regional level,” Perrin said. “But this team grew with confidence. Really, once we beat (Saginaw) Nouvel in the District Finals, I could just tell we had the mindset to go as far as they wanted, and they put on a good run.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Teammates converge on Liggett’s Kate Birgbauer after the freshman’s winning shot in Friday’s Division 4 Final. (Middle) Liggett’s Rebecca Lohman moves the ball to a teammate while Montrose players pursue.
Powers Learns, Returns, Wins D3 Title
June 16, 2017
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
WILLIAMSTON – Kennedy Myers didn’t want to forget the images, even if they were still like piercing wounds.
A sophomore forward for the Flint Powers Catholic girls soccer team, Myers had flashbacks of last year’s Division 3 title game loss to Hudsonville Unity Christian when Powers took the field to face Freeland in this year’s Final on Friday.
“Right before this game started, I remembered last year and how the seniors felt getting their medals for second place,” Myers said. “Seeing their faces and how disappointed they were. I knew I had to use that to motivate me today.”
Thanks to two early goals from Myers, Powers made good of another title chance and had a much happier disposition during the medal ceremony this time following a 4-0 defeat of Freeland.
The championship was the second in school history for Powers (26-1-2), which also won it all in 2011.
“You look back knowing we were a better team last year,” Powers coach Art Moody said. “Nothing against Unity because they did what they needed to. We just outshot them last year and learned from that. We came in here saying these were the things we needed to do better. It meant so much to have that negative to look back on to kind of say, ‘Hey, this is how we are going to turn it into a positive.’”
Powers took a 1-0 lead with 30:18 remaining in the first half on a goal by Myers, who found herself with the ball right in front of the goal following a series of deflections off a free kick.
Powers then scored two goals over a span of 1:34, the first by Myers with 19:05 left in the first half.
Dribbling toward the goal from the right side of the net, she had a shot blocked by Freeland junior goalkeeper Alexa Walker.
But the ball bounced back toward the middle of the box, Myers won the race to the ball and fired into an open net to make it 2-0 Powers.
With 17:31 left in the first half, senior Emilie Pechette then drilled home a shot from 18 yards out to give the Chargers a 3-0 lead.
“I definitely think it shot our confidence down,” Freeland coach Lauren Kemerer said. “I just tried to explain to the girls that if something like that happens, you have to pick yourselves up.”
Powers made it 4-0 with 20:25 left in the game when senior Gabrielle Amato headed home a ball in the box off a corner kick by senior Sophia Dubiel that deflected off of a Freeland defender and went in.
“(Last year) definitely carried with us,” Powers senior sweeper Rachel Phillpotts said. “It definitely made an impact on how we came out here and how we did our season this year. We needed to come out and really show people that last year was not a fluke.”
Freeland (23-2) entered with a lot of momentum following a 3-2 Semifinal win Tuesday over three-time reigning champion Unity Christian.
The downside from that win for Freeland was that it lost one of its best players, senior midfielder Jessica Piper, late in the game to a knee injury.
Piper didn’t play in the title game against Powers.
“She’s a phenomenal player,” Kemerer said. “Defensively and offensively she’s a leader on our team, and it was definitely detrimental to our team to not have her.”
Still, Freeland did make the MHSAA championship game for the first time in school history.
“Our goal this year was getting past Unity,” Kemerer said. “We wanted it and worked towards it. We hit our goals. We expected to make it here. It’s unfortunate we lost, but it is what it is. It’s a learning experience for all of us.”
Click for the full scoring summary.
PHOTOS: (Top) Flint Powers Catholic players celebrate during Saturday's Division 3 Final at Williamston High School. (Middle) Freeland's Erin Tyson (2) works to gain possession against Powers' Dominique Amato (19).