BLOOMFIELD HILLS — Yes; after all that they’d been through, breaking up was indeed hard to do.
But as they were cutting the ties from a cooperative soccer program formed with Clarkston Everest Collegiate, the girls at Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart showed excitement over the possibilities of forming their own team for the first time.
The small group of Gazelles who joined forces with the Mountaineers had experienced some success — even reaching the Division 4 state championship game at Michigan State University last June — but with a significant number of girls who had played the sport at the CYO levels (and younger), Sacred Heart felt this was the year to add another varsity sport.
On the surface, it seems risky — particularly with fewer than 75 girls enrolled in the upper school — but head coach Kevin Nowlan said interest in the game had been bubbling under the surface around the Bloomfield Hills campus for quite a few years.
“A bunch of the families wanted to get together for some activities when the girls were in second grade and we went to play some soccer,” Nowlan said. “We started playing rec soccer, and guess what? That’s the ninth-grade class now. Every one of these freshmen, except maybe one of them, played together on that team as second-graders.”
Along the way, that group formed Sacred Heart’s first CYO soccer team back in 2019, and they were a force on the field.
“In eighth-grade soccer they went to the CYO championship game, and they lost that game, but we all realized that we’ve got a nucleus of a team that could really be something exciting in high school,” Nowlan said. “Two years behind them, that class grew into soccer, and another one two years behind them, and all of a sudden, you’ve got this pipeline and it’s turning into a program.”
Soccer is the first sport added to the upper school offerings since ice hockey came along in 2018-19, athletic director Paige Comito said.
“I think it was the right move, because we’re finding that our middle school soccer program has really developed over the past three years and we’re seeing strength in that program, so it just made sense to bring on our own team,” Comito said. “We saw last year when we were in that co-operative program with Everest; we had 11 girls on that team. With the freshmen coming in, we just felt that it was the right time.”
Since dissolving the co-op agreement had been an ongoing topic of debate, it wasn’t a sudden shock to anyone when Comito explained to Everest last fall that Sacred Heart was going to break away, effective this spring.
“It had been on the table for the last two years or so because we saw our middle school program grow,” she said. “We had a strong group, a large group last year, and we knew what we had coming in, and Coach Nowlan was ready to take on the responsibility of becoming a varsity coach for us. It also helps if we want to have girls choose us for high school because we have a soccer team. That was part of it as well.”
Everest wasn’t left high and dry either, as the Mountaineers have accepted players from Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes on to their team this season, re-forming a union that had existed throughout the prior decade. That pair of schools even won a state championship in 2010 and also played in the state finals in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Sacred Heart hopes to get to that level someday. For now, the Gazelles have a unique mix of a roster, sporting a young nucleus but also a small group of girls that have deep post-season tournament experience.
Despite the differences in soccer backgrounds, the players seem to want to accomplish similar things, according to their goal sheets that Nowlan collected.
“They did mesh, interestingly, and that’s where I thought we had a real maturity on this team,” he said. “The biggest thing that really came out was about team bonding. We had the girls tell us what they think our goals should be. We built a Word Cloud, and what popped out of that was bonding, being a team and collaboration.
“If you would have asked me as a kid, it would have been ‘Gotta win’ — but that wasn’t the first thing that popped out. I thought that was a pretty interesting take.”
Out of its first five games, Sacred Heart won two, but those were decisive victories against their Catholic League Intersectional Division opponents, Chesterfield Austin Catholic (5-0 on April 16) and Marine City Cardinal Mooney (9-0 on April 18).
“What we wanted to do was play a couple of really strong games out of the gate and see where our gaps were, then have a couple games in league play where we compete really well,” Nowlan said. “That’s gone according to plan. We got beat pretty handily in the game we played last Saturday (April 13 against Auburn Hills Oakland Christian), but the girls responded really well, took it to heart, improved on some of those gaps and played really well this week.”
And for the girls, the experience goes far deeper than the number of wins, losses and draws.
“We have everyone from freshmen to seniors, so we want to just make connections and have trust in each other on and off the field,” sophomore Alexa Ross said. “It’s great to say, ‘Hey, are you excited for the game?’ or ‘What are you doing for the weekend?’ or ‘Can I have a ride home?’ Right now we’re sitting together and eating pizza after a win. It just feels good to talk on and off the field, being able to be comfortable with each other.”
“I am not the most experienced player, but also with a smaller team it opens opportunity to become a better player and just see how we create new bonds with new people,” said senior Perla Barahona. “There are very few of us that were on the team last year and in years prior, so we’re playing with new girls. I would say it’s a hard change, but it’s a pretty smooth change. We have things to work on, like communication, because we haven’t been playing together for a long time, but I am grateful for the opportunity to play with my Sacred Heart girls.”
Sacred Heart already has two other spring sports with deep traditions of success — lacrosse and tennis — but having a third sport share the spotlight hasn’t hurt.
“I’m really happy for them,” said Comito, who was a member of a state championship-winning lacrosse squad when she was a Sacred Heart student. “I’m looking forward to seeing this program grow. I’m incredibly proud of the girls and Coach Nowlan, and I think they have a great first season ahead of them.”
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