There were flag-snapping winds and intermittent rain, but no thunder.
There was lightning, however, provided in a 7-minute outburst by Novi Detroit Catholic Central for a 3-0 victory over Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood for the CHSL A-B boys soccer championship.
In the first game of this doubleheader played at Madison Heights Bishop Foley, conditions were more favorable. Royal Oak Shrine (15-5-2) and Riverview Gabriel Richard (8-1-2) each had their opportunities, but only one succeeded: Shrine’s goal late in the second half for a 1-0 win and the C-D title.
Richard’s Jolo Abordo missed a pair of scoring chances in the first half. The first ball bounced off Shrine goalie Stephen Ruhle’s left shoulder over the net. The second was just wide left.
With four minutes to play in the first half, Shrine sophomore Ben Plunkey got the ball to junior Noah Gappy in a scrum in front of the Richard net, but in the confusion senior Owen Groth couldn’t complete the opportunity, blooping his kick over the net.
At the eight-minute mark of the second half, Gappy and Groth redeemed themselves. Groth headed Gappy’s corner kick past Richard’s goalie Kyle Paoletti.
“We practiced a lot on the corner kick yesterday,” said Shrine coach Mark Soma. “We were able to take advantage.” This was Shrine’s second appearance in the CHSL soccer finals, the other in 2013, a 1-0 loss to Pontiac Notre Dame Prep.
“There are high emotions when you are playing for hardware,” said coach Eric Perilla, his first year at Richard, and the school’s first time in a soccer finale. “We had opportunities, but to me the difference was the goalie (Ruhle).”
The precipitation didn’t commence until after the halftime break in the CC-Cranbrook tussle. The Shamrocks faced the wind in the first half.
“It was brutal,” said Coach Gene Pulice. “We regrouped and re-invented the wheel.”
It got CC rolling. At 27:38, Owen Becker scored on a breakaway; then, at 23:32, Becker scored again with an assist from Jeswin David; and, the icing, at 20:22, John Willemsen converted a loose ball for the third goal – all accomplished in seven minutes and 16 seconds.
“We knew CC scores in bunches,” said Cranes coach Chad O’Kulich. “We had several opportunities in the first half, but the ball didn’t find the net.”
CC (11-3-1) – ranked No. 6 in Division 1 by the Michigan High School Soccer Coaches Association – is the defending state Division 1 champion. Cranbrook, with a 13-1-1 record, is rated No. 9 in Division 2.
