MADISON HEIGHTS — A rare occurrence took place Tuesday evening at Bishop Foley High School: the Ventures girls soccer squad shut out Royal Oak Shrine 2-0.
“I don’t know the last time when that’s happened,” said second-year athletic director Mike Maltese.
It happened six years ago, way back in 2017, when Bishop Foley beat Shrine in a pair of season-ending games, on May 20, 1-0 for the CHSL championship, and on June 3, a 2-1 overtime victory for a district title in state playoffs.
Since then, it’s been misery for the Ventures, 0-10-2, against the Knights.
Foley coach Ryan Elchuk stressed defense in this latest encounter. “We took away a lot of opportunities for Shrine. The girls did a nice job,” he said.
Some 12 minutes into the game, junior attacker Andrea Friedel found the left corner of the net with a 21-yard ground ball past Shrine goalkeeper Elena Gallagher for a 1-0 first-half lead.
With nine minutes to play, Friedel again beat Gallagher on a penalty shot to seal the deal for the Ventures (5-2-1), ranked No. 9 in Division 4.
Shrine managed a dozen shots, with six on goal to test Foley’s goalie, senior Grace Kaptur.
“Not to take anything away from Foley,” Shrine coach Mark Soma said, “but we caused our own demise. We usually get a game where we don’t get the performance we expect. We’ve had our ups and downs.”
Shrine (3-2) is ranked No. 3 in Division 4, which they won in 2019 and 2022 and was a finalist in 2021.
Top-ranked Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett (7-0) opened its season with a 6-0 shutout of Bishop Foley and will square off against the Ventures again on May 11. Shrine has a May 4 meeting with Liggett.
St. Mary’s win streak at 82
There’s nothing rare about Orchard Lake St. Mary’s record-setting win streak. It’s been going on since May 1 a year ago.
This week the Eaglets disposed of Warren De La Salle 17-8 and 9-5 and Novi Detroit Catholic Central 3-0 and 8-3 to extend their streak to 82.
This weekend, St. Mary’s will play Dexter (5-3) on Friday and the University of Detroit Jesuit (3-11) for a doubleheader on Saturday.
If they are successful, next week appears to be the most challenging in their quest to break the national record of 89.
On Tuesday, the top-ranked Division 1 Eaglets play No. 3 Northville (12-1) followed the next day by a doubleheader against Division 2 top-ranked Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett (8-4) and then Saturday, May 6, versus No. 10 Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice (10-3) the resumption of the 5-5 tie the teams played on April 19 before a regularly scheduled twinbill.
Contact Don Horkey at [email protected].
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