South Christian Scores 1st MHSAA Title
June 15, 2013
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
MASON – Grand Rapids South Christian girls soccer coach Jason Boersma likes to shift senior Kayla Diemer between playing defense and forward.
Boersma let out a hearty laugh Saturday afternoon when Diemer was asked which position she preferred. He anticipated the response.
“I like to put the ball in the net,” Diemer said. “It’s my favorite part.”
Diemer must have loved playing in the MHSAA Division 3 championship game, as she scored the only goal in South Christian’s 1-0 victory over Pontiac Notre Dame Prep at Mason High School.
Diemer broke a scoreless deadlock in the 64th minute when she took a pass from freshman Cierra Buist and beat the goalkeeper for her 12th goal of the season. The Sailors made it hold up for the first MHSAA girls soccer championship in school history.
“Kayla got the goal; she deserves it,” Boersma said. “She’s been a leader on this team all year. She’s a top player, she plays defense, and she’s been willing to change her role.
“She loves to play forward, and we got her up there for a little while (Saturday), and it paid off.”
Diemer played it off almost matter-of-factly.
“I was in the right place at the right time, I guess,” she said. “It was a perfect pass from Cierra. I think there was a defender on me, and I just tapped it to the side. It was just a blur.
“I just saw the goalie and got it past her.”
Both teams came into their first championship game riding hot offenses. South Christian had outscored five tournament opponents 20-3, while the Fighting Irish outscored six opponents by a combined 28-4 score.
“That was the one time that they really executed what I had heard about them and did exactly what they wanted to do,” Notre Dame Prep coach Jim Stachura said about the goal. “That was the only time in the game that they did exactly what they wanted to do.
“Their size and speed definitely was the difference in the game. We just didn’t have enough of the size and speed. We don’t have the athletes to match up with them. The bottom line is athletically they were just tough, and a lot of girls were physically spent at the end of the game.”
One of South Christian’s priorities was containing Notre Dame Prep’s Taylor Timko, a junior who already has verbally agreed to play at the University of Michigan and had 39 goals coming into the game.
Timko had a few chances, including one from directly in front of the net in the first half. She missed wide left on that shot, and in the 75th minute she was stopped by South Christian goalkeeper Emily Blankespoor, a junior who registered her 15th shutout and said she didn’t know it was Timko who was 12 yards in front of her ready to shoot.
“Things happen so fast that I wasn’t paying attention to who it was,” she said. “I just knew they were going to shoot, and my gut reaction was that you have to make the stop.
“I dove to my left. I stopped it with my left hand, and it went a little bit in front of me, and then I jumped on it. My defense is really great, and they’ve been great all season for me, so it’s just about you have to react, and if it goes in, you can’t do anything about it”
Although Blankespoor did not know who was shooting, Boersma certainly did.
“Our goalie came up with a monster save,” he said. “On the bench we just thought, ‘Oh no, here it is, 12 yards out, this girl’s a scorer,’ and she put it right on the net.
“(Timko) is a great player. You can see that left foot she has, she hit some rockets, and she missed one. We talked all day about forcing her to her right, and she got three good cracks with her left, which is what we didn’t want to happen.”
Although South Christian seemed to dominate play with the ball being in the Notre Dame Prep end most of the game, the Fighting Irish held a 6-3 edge in shots on goal.
“I thought we did a really, really good job considering the fact that we left more goals on the field,” Stachura said. “It’s a bummer it turns out those lost opportunities were just a little wide.”
South Christian, which entered the game ranked No. 1 in Division 3, finished the season 22-1-3, while the second-ranked Fighting Irish ended 21-3-2.
“To end the season in this fashion with a state championship, this is what these girls have been looking for for years,” Boersma said. “We have a lot of these girls who are leaders, and they said in the fifth grade they wanted to do it. To have it happen is a dream come true. Their team effort as a whole – our team defense – we’ve had nine goals on us this year.
“What a year, a boys championship and girls championship. This is special.”
PHOTO: Grand Rapids South Christian’s Kayla Diemer celebrates her goal, which ended up being the lone score in her team’s Division 3 championship win over Pontiac Notre Dame Prep. (Click to see more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Plenty to Celebrate for Stoney Creek
June 17, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Happy Birthday, Emily Solek. Happy first championship, Rochester Hills Stoney Creek.
Friday surely will be a milestone day to remember for the lone scorer in this season’s MHSAA Division 1 Final – and also for teammates who with her earned the program’s first girls soccer championship, against most expectations.
Stoney Creek entered the postseason ranked No. 10 in Division 1, the same spot it occupied in the first state coaches poll in mid-April and its highest ranking this spring. But it finished No. 1 Friday, with Solek connecting on a penalty kick with just under 11 minutes to play, giving the junior midfielder a little more to celebrate than ice cream and cake.
“Coming into this season, there were a lot of doubts about this team,” Solek said. “I think just because we had 12 seniors graduating last year, that it was just going to be a new team, new players and hard to get the vibe going.
“I think we were all up for the challenge.”
Stoney Creek’s only other MHSAA championship game appearance came in 2005, in Division 2. The Cougars exited last season in the Regional Semifinal with a shootout loss to Grand Blanc, the eventual Division 1 runner-up.
Given that that team graduated five players who earned all-state recognition, and this season’s team brought back only three seniors, it was fair to not expect much more of a run this time.
But that clearly wasn’t giving Stoney Creek (18-3-3) enough credit.
The Cougars earned their first Regional title since that last championship game run 11 years ago and got to MSU in part by downing No. 2 Utica Eisenhower, No. 4 Novi, No. 7 Utica Ford and No. 14 Troy Athens.
“We just realized that we just have to work our hardest, and then good things will come from that,” Solek said. “Our motto was kinda like, ‘Game by Game,’ and that’s how we took it.”
Stoney Creek had 12 shots Friday to Canton’s four, but only four on goal. Canton’s defense gave up only five goals over seven MHSAA postseason games.
But the Cougars kept pressuring the Chiefs on Friday. Three of those shots on goal came during the second half, and Canton senior keeper Jordan Anheuser made an especially impressive set of stops near the 24-minute mark in the second half when she punched away a crossing pass and then slid into the attack to deflect another shot and diffuse a potential rally.
Stoney Creek received the penalty shot after a long pass was launched in front of the Canton net and an attempted header toward the goal drew the foul. Solek punched her deciding kick into the lower right side of the net because “that’s where I go every time on my PKs,” she said.
“Canton did just a great job of winning the ball in the air and getting us out of the zone,” Stoney Creek coach Bryan Mittelstadt said. “We kept trying to push and push and push. (They have) a very strong back line and a very disciplined goalie. We just kept trying to get through the back line, and it was very difficult all day. “
The Chiefs’ run to East Lansing also was considered unexpected, seeing as they weren’t ranked at the end of the regular season after falling in their last two games before the start of tournament play.
But Canton (18-2-4), seeking its first MHSAA title since 2001, made its point by downing top-ranked Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central 2-1 in the Semifinal.
“It’s a disappointing way to end the season, but I am so proud of my team,” Anheuser said. “To not be ranked and go this far, we were definitely the underdog, and I’m proud of everything we accomplished this season. (We’re) still going out on a good note.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Rochester Hills Stoney Creek hoists its first MHSAA championship trophy in girls soccer Friday at DeMartin Stadium. (Middle) Stoney Creek’s Isabella Langusch (18) and Canton’s Jennifer Richmond work for possession.