Bloomfield Hills wins season opener over Groves, 3-0
The host Bloomfield Hills Black Hawks won a belated season opener 3-0 over the Birmingham Groves Falcons Thursday night.
“It’s nice to actually get a first game in, and I thought the girls responded well,” Black Hawks head coach Alan Zakaria said. “Not playing for two weeks, I don’t know how familiar they were with each other, but I thought they grew in the game and continued to get better and better.”
The Black Hawks largely controlled the game from the start behind midfield effort that recycled the ball regularly. Bloomfield Hills also showed good chemistry on the ball in their first game as a team, stringing passes together as they probed the Groves defense.
But the Falcon defense, anchored by Avery Schuetz, held the Black Hawks in check until just 59 seconds remaining in the first half when Sara Huston scrambled a rebound home off a corner kick to give Bloomfield Hills a 1-0 lead at the half.
“I was happy with our defense. They kept them out. They really limited their (Bloomfield Hills’) quality of chances. Their first goal came off a corner. They (Bloomfield Hills) are phenomenal on their set pieces. We just have to do a little better job winning
the ball because they did a little better job today doing that, and that was really the difference,” Groves head coach Greg DeCourval said.
The second half was largely like the first half with Bloomfield Hills controlling the play but struggling to create high quality chances — or to finish them — until late in the half. The Black Hawks added two late goals — one each by Ava Badallo and Drew Martin — as the Bloomfield Hills counterattack put home a pair of late goals, catching the Falcons committing additional attackers forward trying to get a late score themselves.
Led by the play of midfielder Elsie Meilinger, the Falcons were able to create a couple of chances. But Groves largely struggled in the final third and finished the game with only two shots on goal.
“There were times that we really were connecting well in the middle third, and when we got to the attacking third they (Bloomfield Hills) really did a great job at closing out our attempts and sniffing out our
runs, and that made it hard to connect in the attacking third,” DeCourval said.
Bloomfield Hills (1-0) will now have a few scheduled days off before starting the OAA Red portion of their schedule on Tuesday when they host Rochester.
“I’m just really proud of the whole group. It’s been almost two years since we got a game in,” Zakaria said. “I’m just happy that we could get a game in, and you learn so much from playing. I’m just really proud of all 19 players and what they gave today. They did a wonderful job.”
Groves (3-3) faces crosstown rival Seaholm on Saturday in an OAA crossover contest.