#TBT: Recalling These 1st Class Champs
May 1, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
This spring's MHSAA Girls Soccer Tournament will include 450 schools playing across four divisions beginning later this month.
Three decades ago, girls soccer was just getting started in Michigan. But growth came quickly: In 1987, after four seasons awarding one "open class" champion, Salem and Saginaw Eisenhower became the first multiple winners to emerge from an expanded two-class tournament.
Salem, which since has finished runner-up in 1995, won the Class A championship 2-1 over Livonia Churchill. Churchill had won the last "open class" championship the year before and also fell 2-1, in overtime, in 1988 to Canton.
Eisenhower, which had finished runner-up in the first MHSAA Final in 1983, beat Plainwell 3-2 in the first Class B championship game. The title was among final crowning achievements for Eisenhower, which closed after the 1987-88 school year and joined with the also-closing Saginaw MacArthur to form Saginaw Heritage the following fall.
Plainwell also would fall in the 1988 Class B Final, 4-1 to Madison Heights Bishop Foley, but won the Division 2 title in 2011 and finished runner-up in 2012. Heritage won the Division 1 championship in 2002.
The MHSAA split girls soccer from two classes into three divisions in 1998 and then moved to the current four-division format in 2000.
PHOTOS: (Top) Saginaw Eisenhower players celebrate after their 3-2 win over Plainwell in the 1987 Class B Final. (Middle) Salem players surround coach Ken Johnson and their newly-earned Class A title trophy after winning 2-1 over Livonia Churchill.
Flashback 100: Tamer's History-Making Run Starts in Dexter, Continues to Paris
September 27, 2024
It's been a summer of firsts for Abby Tamer.
The 2021 Dexter graduate and current University of Michigan student-athlete became the first from her high school to qualify for the Olympics and the first Wolverines field hockey player to represent Team USA.
At the Paris Olympics, Tamer led Team USA in scoring, tallying two goals over five pool play matches. She started all five at forward.
In high school, Tamer led the Dexter club field hockey team to state titles in 2019 and 2020, scoring 117 career goals and earning numerous accolades. She was twice named the Michigan High School Field Hockey Association's Player of the Year (2019 and 2020) and was a 2019 National Field Hockey Coaches Association First Team All-American. Her mother, Keely (Libby) Tamer, had played field hockey at Michigan, and her father, Chris, had played ice hockey at Michigan and for 11 years in the NHL.
While at Dexter, Tamer also played soccer, helping the Dreadnaughts to MHSAA District titles in 2018 and 2019. (Her junior season was canceled due to COVID-19, and she graduated early as a senior and enrolled that spring at U-M.)
Girls Field Hockey will become an MHSAA-sponsored sport starting with the 2025-26 school year.
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Previous "Flashback 100" Features
Sept. 20: Todd Martin’s Road to Greatness Starts at East Lansing - Read
Sept. 13: James Earl Jones, Dickson High Hoops to Hollywood Legend - Read
Sept. 6: Pioneers' Unstoppable Streak Stretches 9 Seasons - Read
Aug. 30: Detroit dePorres Rushes to 1995 Class CC Football Championship - Read
PHOTOS At left, Abby Tamer plays field hockey for Dexter, and at right she takes the field for Dexter's girls soccer team. (Photos courtesy of Ryan Maki Photography.)