THE HASTINGS
Thursday, October 14, 2021Undefeated!
No. 15 Vikings go 9-0 in GLAC
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
The Vikings got in all the kinds of celebra-
tion Monday afternoon.
Teammates leapt into each other as they
sprinted between the field and the bench. The
student section poured onto the field to form a
mob scene. After the handshakes between the
Lakewood varsity boys’ soccer team and the
Lansing Christian Pilgrims, the Vikings ducked
through a tunnel of their classmates on the
Unity Field grass. They did their best to douse
head coach James LeVeque with what was left
of the jugs of ice water from the bench.
Finally, they hoisted the Greater Lansing
Activities Conference Championship trophy.
The Lakewood boys capped off a undefeated
16-0-1 regular season and a 9-0 GLAC season by
scoring a 3-1 win over Lansing Christian in the
final game of the 2021 GLAC Championship
Tournament Monday afternoon. Lakewood,
ranked 15th in the state in Division 3, and
Lansing Christian, ranked 11th in the state in
Division 4, both earned semifinal wins at
Lakewood High School Saturday, but after the
two ballgames on the soggy field officials deter-
mined that the turf was too tore up to continue
the tournament so the two teams had to wait until
Monday to settle the conference championship.
Lansing Christian is now 11-5 overall this sea-
son and closes the GLAC at 7-2, with both league
losses coming against the Lakewood boys.
“This is awesome,” Lakewood senior Tyson
Raffler said. “It is a really great experience for
us to accomplish this win. I am really glad we
could go this far in the season and be undefeat-
ed. I am really happy for my teammates.”
“We put a lot of hard work into it. We had
a lot of hard work from our families too,” he
added, especially pleased to get pre-game
meals every day.
“We had good captains and a good group of
seniors and pushed our way through it I guess.”
The Vikings had to push through Monday
after a bit of a slow start that had them trail-
ing 1-0 in the tournament game made up of
two 30 minute halves rather than the usual 40
minute halves for a regular season contest.
A Lakewood free kick from the right side
near midfield eventually led to Raffler being
left alone with the ball about 30 yards out from
the Lansing Christian goal on the left side.
“Should I shoot it or should I pass it off,”
went through Raffler’s head. “I’ve got to
shoot it.”
“It was a lucky shot. I’m glad it went in,”
Raffler said, while admitting he’s probably
wasn’t giving himself enough credit. His coach
certainly didn’t think it was as lucky shot.
“Just a bender to the far post, just a gorgeous
shot,” was how LeVeque described it. “That
woke us up and it got the crowd behind us.
“We have never had a crowd like this
before. The crowd was absolutely amazing.
They came out in force. We had a student
section, they were loud, they were obnoxious,
maybe a little too obnoxious at times. The
pep band came out at the end.
“That pumped the kids up. Once we got
that first goal and tied it, the momentum you
could tell changed. We weren’t flawless by
any means, but we took advantage of the
chances that we had which has been a sore
spot this year. We have kind of left some
chances out there and struggled to finish on
some quality looks and today we took advan-
tage of most of the quality chances we got
which is a really good sign for us.”
Colby Carter scored the other two Lakewood
goals, with assists from Jacob Merryfield and
Jackson Mackenzie. The two goals were the
team-leading 16th and 17th of the season for
the Vikings’ junior attacker Carter.
“[Carter] puts himself in the right places all
the time,” LeVeque said. “He makes amazing
runs. He knows where to be and when to be
there. He is not going to be the fastest guy up
there, but he is probably the most skilled for-
ward that we have on the team – technical wise.
He does a good job of putting the ball in the
corner of the net and just always gets around
the ball. He fights through contact. He is a very
physical player. He has always been that way.”
He scored the go-ahead goal for the Vikings
with 14.2 seconds left in the first half.
Sophomore Garrett Feighan pushed the
Pilgrim defense back with a run towards the
right corner. The ball was sent back up the
line in front of the Viking bench where
Merryfield got to it. He chipped the ball into
the top right corner of the box where Carter
ran onto it and fired it past the Lansing
Christian keeper Benjamin Sullivan.
Carter found the net at the other end, the
north end, of Unity Field six minutes into thesecond half. This time Mackenzie chipped a ball
from left to right across the Pilgrim box and
Carter beat Sullivan to it to knock it into the net.
That play was initially set-up by a long free kick
from near midfield by teammate Connor
Feighan that rang off the upper left 90 of the
goal, causing some havoc in the Pilgrim box.
Lakewood keeper Ben Scobey managed to
clean things up in his box throughout the sec-
ond half, despite the Pilgrims getting the ball
in deep on him a couple times. Scobey’s key
save of the game came moments after Baylor
Brogan’s goal there minutes into the ballgame
that put his team in front 1-0. Brogan got
another chance 15 yards out in front of Scobey
who managed to snag the point-blank shot top
keep his team within a goal.
“We we a little flat,” LeVeque said. “We
weren’t terribly flat, but I think they came out
a little extra motivated. Lansing Christian
came out really hard and won everything in
the middle of the field, won all the 50/
balls, pretty much the first 15-20 minutes had
us on our heels.”
The Viking coach could see the tide turn-
ing though even before Raffler’s long blast
that found the net.
“Zac Gibson and Jacob Merryfield, theycame off the bench today and they energized
us I thought. They went in about eight or so
minutes into the game and they brought up
the energy level,” LeVeque said. “They stared
wining 50/50 balls and they started playing
through guys. That ramped up the team a lit-
tle bit and got us going a little harder. I credit
them for picking up the pace and getting us
emotionally into the game. We were strug-
gling early. We came in a little over excited.”
Lakewood opened the GLAC Tournament
with a 4-0 win over Olivet Saturday morning.
Lansing Christian won its GLAC Tournament
semifinal 3-1 over Laingsburg Saturday.
The Vikings will be undefeated now until
their season is done. They were scheduled to
open the MHSAA Division 3 Districts at
home against Wellspring Prep Wednesday
(Oct. 13). The winner of that ballgame will
travel to South Christian for a district semifi-
nal match Tuesday at 5 p.m. against either
No. 11 Grand Rapids Catholic Central or
Grand Rapids West Catholic who meet for
their opening round match this afternoon.
South Christian, ranked fifth in the state in
Division 3, will face either Grand River Prep
or Belding in the district’s other semifinal
match Tuesday.TK’s Wilkinson
takes regional
singles victory
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
Grand Rapids Christian and East Grand
Rapids will be a part of the MHSAA Division 3
Lower Peninsula Boys Tennis Finals, but nei-
ther of their fourth singles players could get by
Thornapple Kellogg senior Payton Wilkinson.
Wilkinson won the regional championship
at fourth singles during the Division 3
Regional Tournament played on the Eagles
and Pioneers’ home courts Wednesday. The
regional tournament was moved up two days
due to predicted Friday rain storms.
The Trojan team placed fifth on the day at
the tournament where the top two teams and
top two first singles players earned spots in
the upcoming state finals.
Wilkinson matched up with East Grand
Rapids’ Prahlad Pant in the fourth singles
championship, and had a 3-2 lead when Pant
resigned from the match.
Wilkinson opened his day with a 6-0, 6-0 win
over Hastings’ Brandon Darling and then bested
Grand Rapids Christian’s Callum Campbell 6-2,
7-5 in the semifinal match at fourth singles.
Wilkinson was down 5-2 in the second set
before rallying to take five straight games. He
said he was able to fix his mindset to pull off
the win in straight sets over Campbell.
“I told my coach, it’s a lot easier to get to
six from two then going into a third set and
starting over,” Wilkinson said.
“There was a big turning point to get to
5-5. There was what had to be about a five
minute rally. It was just back and forth, over
100 balls, and I ended up winning that.”
“I don’t miss that often,” Wilkinson said of
being able to pull out a point like that, “and I
think my swing has improved greatly this sea-
son. The forehand has gotten a lot better. The
backhand goes in. I figured out if you pick on
their backhand more than they can pick on
yours you end up winning most of the time.”
Grand Rapids Christian won the regional
championship with 17 points, ahead of East
Grand Rapids 15, Holland Christian 13,
Holland 8, Thornapple Kellogg 7, Zeeland
West 5, Hamilton 4, Zeeland East 2, Hastings
1 and Wayland 1.
TK senior Jack Geukes at second singles
opened his day with a 6-1, 6-1 win over East
Grand Rapids’ Mikey Beusse. The TK first
doubles team of James Thorne and Ronald
Simmons scored a 6-4, 6-2 win over Hamilton’s
Joshua Bush and Kyle Staub. TK also had its
second doubles team of Hayden Oly and
Kameron Nichols score a 7-5, 6-2 over the
number two team from Wayland. The Trojan
fourth doubles team of Aaron Michald and
Aidan Dudik scored a 6-0, 6-1 win over Chase
Robinson and Andrew Hinds from Wayland.
“It was a good season,” Wilkinson said. “The
guys were very fun. I think it was probably the
best season out of all four that I played. The
line-up changed, like with doubles and singles
with the seniors graduating and I think every-
body was put where they were supposed to be
and ended up being successful at their spot. It
was good to see everybody have some success.”
The Trojans had one of their most success-
ful seasons ever in the OK Gold Conference
this fall. They finished second to the league
champions from Forest Hills Eastern by fin-
ishing in a tie with Grand Rapids Catholic
Central at the conference tournament hosted
by South Christian Oct. 2.Thornapple Kellogg senior Payton
Wilkinson captured the fourth singles
championship at the Division 3 Regional
Tournament hosted by Grand Rapids
Christian Wednesday, Oct. 6, in Grand
Rapids. Wilkinson scored victories over
the No. 4 singles players from Hastings,
Christian and East Grand Rapids to earn
his title. (File photo)The Lakewood varsity boys' soccer team celebrates with its Greater Lansing Activities Conference Championship trophy after a 3-1 win over perennial league power Lansing
Christian in the GLAC Tournament Championship Monday at Unity Field in Woodland. The Vikings capped off an undefeated regular season with the victory, moving their
record to 16-0-1. (Photo by Brett Bremer)
Lakewood senior Tyson Raffler rises
above Lansing Christian's Kevin Brooks
to get his head on a ball in the midfield
during the Vikings' 3-1 win over the visit-
ing Pilgrims on Unity Field Monday in the
GLAC Tournament Championship Game.
(Photo by Brett Bremer)Lakewood junior Colby Carter looks to the Viking student section in the Unity Field
bleachers as he celebrates his second goal in the Vikings' 3-1 win over Lansing
Christian Monday in the championship game of the 2021 GLAC Tournament. (Photo
by Brett Bremer)