First-Place Lakers Play Andover to Scoreless Tie

Next time, in the playoffs? The girls soccer team played to a scoreless tie at Bloomfield Andover High Saturday afternoon in a matchup of the two top teams in the Oakland Activities Association White Division.

Head Coach Jason Clark said that in the matchup between “two very evenly matched teams,” he had some regrets that a few good plays in the first half didn’t end in goals.

“It’s just unfortunate — we had our chances, we didn’t take care of them. The finishing was our problem. It’s something we can work on when we work on finishing our league season,” Clark said after the game.

The Lakers (6-1-2 overall, 6-0-2 OAA White) maintained control in the first half with great ball movement, according to senior midfielder Bronte Payne. At 7:54 in the first half, Payne delivered off of a two-touch pass sequence to senior forward Julia Kempf, who shot wide right. With 3:06 left in the first, senior forward Niki Zuk took a center pass in close, but could not maintain control as Andover goalkeeper Emily Atkinson gobbled up the ball.

“We were able to get open and get space – to move the ball around in the first half a lot better than we were able to in the second half,” Payne said. “We put a lot of passes together to combine our efforts.”

Andover took control quickly in the second half by keeping the ball in the Lakers’ zone en route to three corner kicks in the first 10 minutes of play. According to Barons’ first-year Head Coach Aaron Seaton, adjustments in the midfield forced West Bloomfield into pressure situations.

“In the first half, they did a much better job of controlling the middle. We made some adjustments which shored up some of our issues, in addition to losing people on runs and just attacking,” Seaton said.

However, the Lakers were able to maintain its effort on defense thanks to the efforts of Payne, sophomore goalkeeper Mackenzie Collins, and freshman defender Knar Tpouzan.

“Andover came out of the half with a little more fire than we did, but we were able to weather the storm. Solid job defensively and great work in the back from my solid three — Knar just controls everything and Bronte had a tough matchup in the middle against (Andover senior) midfielder Emma Groffsky, but did a great job,” Clark said.

Payne said that the tie, which now sets up the Lakers in a big game at home against Birmingham Groves Tuesday, was a result of sheer effort which she hopes the team will be able to replicate next week.

“It definitely seems like it was a close game because of the score, but I think in the first half, we had a lot of chances that we just didn’t finish on. Everyone was giving 100 percent … it makes Groves a more important game,” Payne said.

The Lakers kick off at home against Groves at 7 p.m. Tuesday. All WBHS students will be admitted free of charge.