Rounding up media coverage of high school lacrosse in the state.
Forest Hills Eastern/Northern 18, Hartland 7
Alex Van Slyke, Photo by Chris Greeg of the Grand Rapids Press
The Husky/Hawk things started slow, but pulled away as the game went on:
All-American Alex VanSlyke, who had five goals and five assists, also voiced his concern about the start of the game.
“We came out really slow and have a tendency to do that,” said VanSlyke, who has committed to play for the University of Michigan next year. “Going forward in the playoffs, we need to come out harder in the first quarter. It was too close of a game in the first quarter, but we opened it up in the second half and played really well.”
Future Wolverine Van Slyke is pictured above.
Northville 15, Ann Arbor Huron 3
That means no more Bill Upton this season 🙁 🙁 :(.
Troy Athens 10, L’Anse Creuse 3
Eight different Red Hawks scored, as Athens won the game much more comfortably than the score seems to indicate (it was a 9-1 halftime lead). I was at the game, so enjoy a few photos:
Portage Central 18, Mattawan 2
The Kalamazoo Gazette covers the Mustangs’ bludgeoning of their rival.
“We’re going to go far — Portage Central has never gotten to the regional finals, and this senior class, this team, is going to make sure we get there,” Grusell said. “It’s the best team I’ve ever seen at Portage Central and we’re going to keep it going.”
PC went on to knock off Okemos and reach the regional final.
Portage Central 14, Okemos 6
What, you didn’t believe me? PC ran out to a 5-0 start and was never challenged by the Chieftains. The Mustangs will face East Grand Rapids in the regional final tonight.
East Grand Rapids 17, Grand Rapids Catholic Central 10
The Pioneers reached the regional final by seeing Jake Coretti score 10 goals on the opposition. Coretti will attend a postgrad year at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut next year.
Brother Rice 25, Saginaw Heritage 0
Let’s discuss how the only recap of this game I could find on the internet came from the local paper of the fourth-year program, not the local paper of the team that has won every MHSAA title in the sport.
North American Lacrosse Invitational
The Observer & Eccentric covers the event a week after it happened.
Birmingham Area Roundup
Patch.com talks both boys and girls in the area.
Flint Powers 7, Walled Lake Northern 4
Dominic Hamper scored 5 points for Powers (3G, 2A).
Clarkston 15, Davison 1
(Very) brief recap from the Flint Journal.
Ann Arbor Skyline Feature
Josh Hagerman of Lacrosse Playground talked to Ann Arbor Skyline coach Nick Zoroya about building a program from scratch – at a brand new high school.
The school is supportive of our sport, but since lacrosse is relatively new in the midwest (to the public), and especially at a new school, we still lack the student body support at games that we want. We eventually want the school to treat lacrosse like football, and get big crowds out to games.
I took in a Skyline game earlier this year, and also witnessed their season-ender against Dexter…
Dexter 18, Skyline 2
This game, more than most others I’ve seen, showed what it takes to win at the high school level: stick skills and the ability to pick up contested GBs. Skyline is a young team, and they’ll get a lot better (there are no seniors at the school, much less on the team), but the difference was that Dexter had 3-4 guys who could reliably carry the ball into a bit of traffic, whereas Skyline had maybe one. Game photos:
Dexter has a Division-1 recruit in VMI-bound Andrew Erber, but if you had told me that the Dreanaughts had a D-1 player on their roster, he would have been my third guess based on this game (though he was impressive in the Dexter-Huron game I caught earlier this year, and seems to be playing out of position on faceoffs). A pair of juniors – #8 Mike Spuller and #32 Jake Waldrup – looked like very solid players to me. Dexter seems committed to building a top-to-bottom program in their area, and it’s paying off.
Detroit Country Day Fluff
“They’re better than their record” says the Oakland Press. They ran up against a tough schedule this season, but a 7-game win streak going into the playoffs shows that the team is peaking at the right time.
Grosse Pointe South 6, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s 3
The Eaglets’ season ends on a disappointing note:
“They have a very goalie, no doubt about it, and yeah, we just couldn’t finish tonight. That’s basically what it came down to,” St. Mary’s coach Greg Normand said. “We threw the ball away 29 times. This game was just like every other game we’ve played this year, close but not close enough.”
OLSM was down a couple players due to injury this year, and should be much better with a more experienced squad in 2012.
Rochester Adams 8, Grosse Pointe North 6
Adams shifted momentum in the second quarter to take control of the game, and held on for the win.
Warren De La Salle 7, Rochester Adams 5
A 4-goal run in the middle quarters was the key to the Pilots’ victory.
The Remaining Games
The season is dwindling down, as the State Finals take place next weekend. Here are the remaining games, all taking place tonight:
- Forest Hills Eastern v. Holt @ Holt (6PM).
- Brother Rice v. Clarkston @ Bloomfield Hills Andover (7PM).
- Detroit Catholic Central v. Novi @ Detroit Catholic Central (7PM).
- Ann Arbor Pioneer v. Troy Athens @ Troy Athens (7PM).
- East Grand Rapids v. Portage Central @ East Grand Rapids (7PM).
- Forest Hills Central v. Detroit Country Day @ Walled Lake Western (7PM).
- Pontiac Notre Dame Prep v. Cranbrook-Kingswood @ Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard (6PM).
- Warren De La Salle v. Grosse Pointe South @ Farmington (6PM).
If you attend any games and want to share your story, or if you know of any news article I’ve missed (grumble grumble the Oakland Press’s sports site doesn’t believe in RSS grumble grumble), be sure to e-mail me at t.w.sullivan1@gmail.com.