ROYAL OAK — Although “making history” is rapidly becoming a sports cliché, it’s an apt description of what Detroit Cristo Rey’s boys’ soccer team accomplished Tuesday night.
The Wolves turned back Royal Oak Shrine, 2-0, in the Catholic High School League’s Cardinal Division championship match. In doing so, Cristo Rey won its first CHSL title in the school’s 16-year history — in any sport.
“It’s the first time the school gets to this point and everybody’s been getting real excited for us to be in the championship, and finally we got it,” said an emotional Eloy Garita, the Wolves’ first-year head coach.
“It means a lot for the school. It means a lot for my family and all the guys for all the work they have done over these weeks, and thank God we got the championship,” Garita said. “We’ve worked hard to get that, and now we’ve done it, and we’re going to try and keep working.”
The first half was played during a steady downpour, and neither team could connect for a goal during the first 40 minutes. Cristo Rey had four shots on Shrine keeper Sean Murphy, while Shrine couldn’t take advantage of an indirect free kick from the top of the goal box.
But Cristo Rey (11-0-1) got a break in the first five minutes of the second half. Alejandro Garita was looking to cross a pass in front of the net to Hugo Romero. Instead, the ball caromed of a Shrine defender into the net.
“It came to the left-side wing, (Garita) did his job — taking on everybody — and then he centered it,” Romero said. “I was just there, it came in, and boom. It was a good goal. It was right for them to give it to me.”
Cristo Rey went up by two after scoring a more conventional goal with 27 minutes remaining to play. Heriberto Salinas got the ball deep up the right sideline, then blooped a shot that went high inside the far post.
“I just remember getting the ball in the corner, looking for the opportunity and I just shot it. I was just looking for the second post and I guess the wind was on my side,” he said. “From the rainy start, everyone decided to make an instant impact, to put the pressure on and not let them control it. It was very frustrating (not to score before halftime), but luckily in the second half we were able to get those chances and those goals.”
“That was a real goal. That was a great shot. If it’s 1-0, it’s OK, but if it’s 2-0, it’s hard to come back,” Shrine coach Mark Soma said. “The weather didn’t help any in the first half, but the own-goal killed us. It was a 50-50 game until we scored a goal on ourselves. You can’t do anything about what happened; it went off a shin guard into the net. The kid didn’t do anything wrong; he was in the right position, but it was just a funny, funny play.
“From there, it was just getting our heads back about us and trying to get back into the game,” he continued. “We didn’t have our best game, at the end of the day.”
Shrine (11-1-3) was ranked second in the state among Division 4 teams while Cristo Rey stood fourth. It was the first time the two schools had faced each other on the pitch since September 2015.
Cristo Rey — which opened in 2008 on the city’s southwest side in the former Holy Redeemer school building — has now won 11 straight games following a season-opening tie against defending division champion Grosse Pointe Woods University-Liggett.
“We started very late in the pre-season, but we got together as a team,” Salinas said. “With the help of our coaches and the help of our teammates, we just continued working from the very beginning. Once we tied with Liggett, we knew there was a chance we could make it this far. I hope that me and my team continue working hard for what’s coming up.”
In the meantime, the Wolves are proud to bring back the school’s first championship trophy.
“It feels very nice,” Romero said. “We’ve never done this before, we made history and I’m very proud to say we won the championship.”
Bishop Division trophy travels to Ohio
Two more teams seeking their first Catholic League soccer title met in the Bishop Division match, and Toledo St. Francis de Sales took home a 3-0 victory over Macomb Lutheran North.
The teams were heading toward halftime in a scoreless tie, until Gavin Trent nudged a rebound into the net 3:13 before the break. Senior captain Josh Brennan fired a line-drive shot which was punched up in the air by the Lutheran North keeper. Trent settled underneath it despite a defender draped on his back.
“Josh just hit it as hard as he could and I had the follow-up. I put my body on the line to get it,” Trent said. “That just started us off. One goal always gets us going and it clearly got us up. That’s happened often this season.”
It only took about a minute for the Knights (10-1-1) to add a second score, as Luke Mossing drilled a shot out of the goalkeeper’s reach into the right side of the net for a more comfortable lead. Mossing celebrated the goal by doing a flip on the turf.
“I don’t believe Luke had a goal up to this point, but it was phenomenal,” St. Francis coach Mike Kern said. “He gets it off his chest, balance turns, and hits an ‘upper 90.’ In games like this, big players step up, and it separates the good from the great.”
The Knights closed out the scoring 10 minutes after halftime on a successful corner kick, when Ryan Bossenbroek knocked in a header from in front of the Mustangs’ net.
“We personally think we had a rough first half, it was kind of flat. It could have been travel, it could have been a various multitude of things, but I think once we slowed down and played our game and had confidence in ourselves, that’s when things started firing,” Kern said. “A lot of players stepped up in many ways, players that necessarily hadn’t before, and it was just great to see that.”
Lutheran North (13-2-1), ranked sixth statewide in Division 3, put up a formidable challenge, but Kern said playing in the Central Division tuned up the Knights for Tuesday’s championship.
“It’s definitely one of the toughest conference I’ve been a part of in coaching, since day one,” he said. “Since we got a little bit of experience in it last year, it really comes down to the week-by-week battles. Anybody can show up and beat anyone. We’re in a conference with a bunch of great players, we play a bunch of great clubs. I’m just proud of the boys and their perseverance, that we’ve been able to push through.”
St. Francis was 5-1 in league play, narrowly ahead of Toledo rival St. John’s Jesuit (4-1-1). Five of the seven schools in the Central Division finished within two and a half games of the top spot, and the Knights’ lone loss was to fourth-place Detroit Catholic Central.
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