Troy handles Black Hawks to advance
The Troy Colts rolled to a 4-1 win over the Bloomfield Hills Black Hawks to open the district playoffs Thursday night.
With the game tied 1-1, the Colts took the lead for good in the dying seconds of the first half. The Colts won a corner kick but had to rush everyone into position with the clock winding down. However, they were able to get the play set up, and Nick Worrell blasted a ball toward the back post that found J.D. Armstrong for a header that clipped the underside of the crossbar and slammed down past the goal line for a goal with only three seconds to play in the half.
“Those are the things that I think sometimes we as coaches overlook about the mentality of some of our players. That was just a good intelligent play. Right away, we got the right guys in the right spots with only 18 seconds when the ball went out of bounds,” Colts head coach Jim Stachura said.
The Colts then added a quick goal just 1:28 after halftimewhen John Palomino played a long ball over the top that Ryan Decker got on the end of. Decker got a clean look at goal from about 10 yards out and fired in a right-footed shot to make it 3-1.
“Three seconds on the clock when the ball goes in, it kind of deflated us a bit just before the half. And then when they scored one in the first minute the whole game changed,” Black Hawks head coach Dougie MacAulay said.
The Black Hawks would never really threaten after that.
The Colts would dominate the second half, controlling possession and blasting shot after shot toward Bloomfield Hills goalkeeper Joseph Pisano, who had a very busy night, mak
ing 10 saves. Troywould get an insurance goal with 11:10 to play on a goal by Carter Cusmano to make it 4-1.
The first half had been much tighter. Momentum swung back and forth a couple of time as the Black Hawks hung tough. Troy had broken out on top early on a left-footed rocket by Palomino from just outside the penalty area on the right side, giving the Colts a 1- 0 lead just 4:25
into the contest. But the Black Hawks would tie it barely two minutes later when James Swanson split two defenders and slotted a ball past the charging goalkeeper on a brilliant individual effort to make it 1-1.
“My most positive thing today is our response after giving up that goal,” Stachura said. “And we have some really good senior leadership, and we have a lot of young guys that play
for us, and they stayedwith in the system and tried to create.”
With the win, Troy (8-24) moves on to next week’s district semifinals atWaterford Mott where the Colts will face Utica.
“I don’t know much about them. The last couple years they’ve had some pretty good players. Obviously, we’ll do our research on them, try to figure some things out, and take one at
a time,” Starchura said.
The BlackHawks finish a challenging year 0-9-2.
“It was a tough season all around really,” MacAulay said. “They enjoyed the season even though they never had a winning record. They still loved playing high school soccer, and I think everybody at this stage is happy to be playing high school soccer given what we dealt with in August.”