Warriors receive championship banner, then pound Trojans

Fri, Oct 10, 2008    to del.icio.us

Western Michigan Christian warmed up for its defense of the Division 4 state title with a 3-0 victory over Fruitport on Thursday at Warrior Field.

The Warriors finish their regular season at 13-4 and host North Muskegon Monday at 5:30 p.m. in pre-district action at Warrior Field. The Trojans drop to 16-3 and travel to Cedar Springs

WMC got on the board 10 minutes into the game when Fruitport was called for an infraction inside the box and junior Evan Bruisma boomed in the penalty kick.

The score stayed 1-0 until 15 minutes into the second half when junior Justin Baker fielded a rebound off Fruitport goalie Mark Geile and drilled it home to put the Warriors up 2-0. A minute later Fruitport had a chance to get back into the game, but misfired on a penalty kick.

Case Ryzebol ended the scoring for the night by sending a penalty shot into the twine.

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Junior keeper Tyler Lane recorded the shut out.

"This was a good win for us. But, more important, not that we won but how we won," coach David Hulings said. "We played as a team.We played fast. We played without losing our composure. We played hard and we competed with a great and fast Fruitport team," Hulings added.

"They had a lot of gas spent the night before in the good win against Spring Lake. That helped us a lot. But, we still had to play and we did."

Prior to the start of the game, the 2007 state soccer championship banner was unfurled and presented to last year's team by Jeff Somers of Grand Haven, a member of WMC's first state championship team of 1988. That team played Detroit Country Day to a 2-2 tie and they were declared co-champions.

JUNIOR VARSITY: WMC scored early on a goal by Matt Wisen, assisted by David Cook. Fruitport's C.J. Rollins scored in the closing minutes to force a 1-1 tie.