![The 2023 Saugatuck girls soccer team.](/sites/default/files/2023-05/230512_Saugatuck_2H.png)
Team of the Month: Saugatuck Girls Soccer
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
May 12, 2023
As mid-May approached two years ago, girls soccer was nowhere to be found in the Saugatuck trophy case, and the team’s championship banner hung blank in the school’s gym next to well-populated celebrations for cross country, track & field and other programs with histories of success.
Just less than 24 months later, things have changed – and are still accelerating as the Trailblazers are putting up numbers from the pitch now as well.
The Saugatuck girls soccer program capped its 2021 season by winning its first District title, then repeated last season. And just over a week ago, the Trailblazers clinched their first league championship in the sport, claiming the Southwestern Athletic Conference Lakeshore title with a 3-0 win over Holland Black River.
Saugatuck’s girls soccer team – the MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” for April – is undefeated since suffering its lone loss of the season March 27. The Trailblazers are 14-1, up to No. 9 in the Division 4 coaches poll, and show no signs of slowing down with 10 shutouts including five over their last six games.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm, especially because soccer hasn’t been big in our school … so to actually get some notice for what we’re doing in soccer, I think our girls are just really super excited about all the attention they’ve received,” said Trailblazers coach Jordan Campbell, who took over the girls soccer program in 2014. “But I think they are also a pretty confident group. I think they expected to be able to compete really well, and last year we lost six games and I think our seniors this year took that all a little personally because they felt that we were better than some of those teams.
“It’s kind of like we want to make sure that (Saugatuck girls) soccer is not just a team that’s just around and can be competitive, but it’s a team that you’ve got to be prepared for.”
After the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19, Saugatuck won 12 games both of the last two. The Trailblazers finished 12-6-3 last year, and already this spring has avenged three of those losses and turned the three draws into three victories.
A group of seven seniors has set things in motion again after helping make the charge over the last two seasons. Senior Adele Nieuwsma moved to Saugatuck from out of state before the 2021 season and made the Division 4 all-state third team a year ago. Haley Rivera, Erin Moerler and Eva Kierzek join her as captains and came up through the Saugatuck recreation and community programs. Iris Kuipers, Ellen Martinsson and Mia Zerfas further bolster the senior class – Kuipers, along with sophomore keeper Kennedy Gustafson, earned all-state honorable mention in 2022.
The team is surging, and the program is growing. The Trailblazers are up about 10 players over totals from the last two seasons, to 35 this spring, which has allowed for varsity and junior varsity teams.
It was a memorable moment for sure when the “2021” was added to the girls soccer banner in the gym, signifying that first District title. These seniors may need to return to celebrate the “2023” for the league title – and perhaps more – that could be part of this memorable run before it finishes next month.
“We’ve had really solid core seniors, and they’ve really stepped up and I almost feel like we’re on autopilot with this group because they do everything on their own and they push each other, and they work to get each other involved and they care about the younger kids and try to get them involved,” Campbell said. “I think it’s a huge thing we’ve seen with this group coming up and getting some experience and building, and seeing where we were when they started as freshman to the last couple of years.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2022-23
March: Croswell-Lexington competitive cheer - Report
February: Hart girls & boys basketball - Report
January: Taylor Trillium Academy girls bowling - Report
December: Byron Center hockey - Report
November: Martin football - Report
October: Gladwin volleyball - Report
September: Negaunee girls tennis - Report
PHOTO courtesy of the Saugatuck athletic department.
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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.