Marian falls to Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central in title game
EAST LANSING » The Birmingham Marian Mustangs fell to the Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central Rangers, 2-1, in the Division 2 championship game at MSU’s DeMartin Soccer Complex on Saturday.
All the scoring came early in a wild start with the teams combining for three goals in a span of less than four minutes.
It was the Rangers who came away with a 2-1 lead on goals by Theryn Hallock and Stella Sutton sandwiching a brilliant individual effort by Marian’s Isa Agrusso who turned at the top of the penalty area, fought off two defenders and slotted a shot home with 32:29 to play in the first half. That tied the game 1-1, but Sutton scored off a corner kick less than a minute later to put the Rangers right back in front.
“We hadn’t give up a goal off a corner since the first game of the year,” Mustangs head coach Reid Friedrichs said. “We knew the restart battle was going to win the game, and we lost the restart battle. That ended up being the difference in the game.”
The Rangers’ counterattack created the early goals for Forest
Hills Central and kept creating problems off and on all game long as the Mustangs struggled to cope with the Rangers’ speed.
“It’s not how we scripted the beginning, a very wide open game. We just looked a little shocked at how fast they could counter. We knew they could counter fast, but I don’t know
if the girls were ready for that kind of speed and that quick of a counter,” Friedrichs said. “We though we were ready, thought that we had it set up defensively. But I think the girls were a little shocked at the speed dealing in a live scenario, and the game was just too wide open in the beginning.”
Both teams were generating chances offensively throughout the first half. The Mustangs piled up seven corner kicks and had plenty of possession and pressure, highlighted by a five-minute stretch midway through the half of sustained pressure and chaos in and around the Ranger