Boyne Mountain Invitational Welcomes 29 Teams, Multiple 2025 Finals Champions
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
August 28, 2026
Boyne Mountain has provided memorable championship experiences over several years as a regular host of the MHSAA’s Girls & Boys Ski Finals.
Now it’s become the field of dreams for boys soccer as well.
Since 2023, some of the state’s top soccer programs have started the season at Boyne, participating in the Boyne Mountain Invitational. This year’s event featured 29 teams, including two 2025 Finals champions.
“It's a massive state – from Marquette to Monroe, Leland to Hartford – we spanned all of it, and undoubtedly we had a 2026 state champion in attendance … or four,” said Jeff Suffolk, tournament director and boys soccer coach of Harbor Springs, the official tournament host. “I have this innate desire as a coach to teach kids how to believe in themselves. A lot of these kids that live this far north never get to see those teams that they may see in the Finals in November.”
Boyne first hosted soccer in 2022 as preseason scrimmages. Twenty-two teams competed last August, including Leland and Warren De La Salle Collegiate, the eventual champions of Divisions 4 and 2, respectively.
“I think we had 12 teams up there for it,” Suffolk recalled of the first soccer played at the Boyne Mountain Sports Complex. “It's a really nice venue to host everybody, and the legend of the of the kids' experience kept growing and parents wanted to be a part of it. So that was kind of how we got to where we're at now.”
Leland is one of the many programs benefiting from the tournament’s popularity. The Comets, also Division 4 champions in 2018, have been a part of it the past two years.
“We actively go off and always try to find the best teams to play,” Leland coach Rob Sirrine said. “I think it's just a fun event, and the teams keep coming back. Special thanks to Jeff Suffolk, because it takes a tremendous effort to pull this off.”
This year Leland sandwiched a 2-0 loss to Detroit Country Day, last year’s Division 3 champ, between ties with Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood and Plymouth Christian Academy.
“You have to score goals to win, and I think we learned we don’t have to get the perfect shot to score,” Sirrine said of the Comets’ games at Boyne. “And I do think defensively we’re solid.”
Leland will now move on to the Elk Rapids Cherry-Kee tournament this weekend playing Muskegon Western Michigan Christian. Elk Rapids also will play WMC along with Williamston.
The Elks, who fell 3-2 to Pontiac Notre Dame Prep in the 2024 Division 3 Final and ended last season in the Regionals, played Grand Rapids South Christian, Eaton Rapids, and Country Day at Boyne this time. They tied Country Day and won their other two matches.
Host Harbor Springs, having capped last season with a 4-1 Regional loss, got off to a rough start at the tournament – but it didn’t discourage Suffolk.
The Rams tied 2001 Division 3 champ Ludington, 0-0, dropped a 3-0 decision to Country Day and fell 4-0 to Cranbrook.
Harbor was playing without senior all-stater Henry Juneau, who broke his shoulder during preseason football while planning to dual-sport this fall. Also, standout sophomore center back and captain Alex Marquardt left the Rams’ first game early with a broken nose after being accidentally kicked in the face. Marquardt and Juneau are expected to miss a good portion of the fall season.
Juneau scored 48 goals last year for the Rams and added 16 assists. With 141 career goals, he ranks among the MHSAA’s all-time leading scorers.
“The boys learned how to play low block, and they did it really, really well,” Suffolk said of the Rams’ adjusting to the losses of Marquardt and Juneau. “By the end of the weekend, they were phenomenal at it, and they held Notre Dame to zero, and we even actually had chances to beat Notre Dame. I thought Notre Dame was one of the better teams there, … They beat Country Day. They beat De La Salle. They beat Marquette.”
Suffolk, who quickly added Romeo or Birmingham Seaholm also were among the best in the tournament, if not the best, received considerable positive feedback on Northern Michigan also offering tremendous team-building activities for teams with its rivers, lakes and campgrounds.
Those extra activities will be available next year, even if the tournament ends up being played right in Harbor Springs, home of Ottawa Stadium.
“This is six years of the making, and we look forward to next year,” Suffolk said. “I kind of want to move into Harbor Springs because I think the experience would be cooler … having the town right there would be great for the parents and Ottawa Stadium is such a cool venue. A lot of people have never seen that place before. I'd like to expose them to that as well. too.”
More credit, too, goes to the school district’s administration, especially athletic director Chris Gallagher.
“I give the administration a lot of credit for being brave and trusting me to produce something like this,” Suffolk said. “There has been tons of support from the administration.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Clockwise from top left: Harbor Springs keeper Turner Schultz dives to his right to stop a shot. Monroe players enjoy some time by the fire. Marshall players and their coach huddle during a break in their tournament schedule. Pontiac Notre Dame Prep supporters tailgate. (Middle) Visiting players take advantage of a chance to go canoeing. (Below) Harbor Springs coach Jeff Suffolk talks things over with his team. (Harbor Springs photos by Drew Kochanny/Petoskey News-Review. All other photos courtesy of Jeff Suffolk.)
Athens' Success Fueled by Players' Drive to be Part of School's Soccer Tradition
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
November 9, 2023
GRAND LEDGE — Troy Athens boys soccer coach Todd Heugh stood on the field Saturday at Grand Ledge High School and reflected while his team was celebrating with fans on the other side of the stadium.
Athens had just won its sixth state championship in school history with a 2-1 overtime triumph over Brighton in the Division 1 Final, and while talking about how his team won this particular title game, he also put a historical perspective on the key to the program’s success.
Heugh – also the school’s first-year athletic director – said that while any player who comes through the program obviously has ambitions to one day play college or professional soccer, there is something else that drives them more than anything.
“An advantage I think we have at Athens is that a lot of times, a lot of our kids, their goal in our city is to make the varsity soccer team at Athens,” Heugh said. “When they make it, they give it everything they have.”
This has pretty much been the pattern since legendary head coach Tim Storch built the program into one of the state’s gold standards during the 1980s and ’90s.
Heugh saw it firsthand growing up in the community and as a member of Storch’s squad that won the 1989 Class A title.
That motivation to be part of the fabled varsity has filtered all the way down to current players, who echo Heugh’s sentiments that desire No. 1 is to put on the Athens uniform once they get to high school.
“I went to Troy vs. Troy Athens games since I was in sixth grade,” said Athens senior Adriano Shauya, the team’s leading goal-scorer this season. “We used to sit together, I looked at those players and I was like, ‘One day, I want to be on that field as a Troy Athens player.’”
Shauya said he had roster spots available to him on academy teams over the last two years and he could’ve skipped high school soccer, but he wanted to fulfill his dream of playing for Athens.
“I just took a look and said, ‘I love every single one of my teammates, and I love my city,’” Shauya said. “I grew up in the city.”
Because of the ambition of so many players in Troy to play high school soccer, it not only creates unmatched drive and determination for Athens, but also provides unmatched depth each season.
Heugh said his team was able to go 17 or 18 deep during games this season, which allowed the Red Hawks to be the fresher team throughout three overtime victories during the MHSAA Tournament.
Athens was clearly the better team in overtime against Brighton, building a 10-1 advantage in shots, eight of which were on goal.
“When we are able to throw waves of players like that at people, it’s been nice,” Heugh said. “We took a large roster at the beginning of the year, and it was tricky. There were some unhappy kids. Kids that don’t get the minutes that they want to get, and they are pretty good players who probably could get those minutes. But they are willing to do what’s best for the team, and they’re willing to take their minutes when they get them.”
Athens will have the unenviable task of replacing 16 seniors from this year’s squad. But if there’s a high school program that never has issues reloading instead of rebuilding, it’s Athens soccer.
As the team was celebrating with fellow students, parents and fans after the game, it’s a good assumption there were youth players in the community sitting in the stands who are now dreaming of one day being on the same field wearing an Athens jersey.
“I was in eighth grade, and I saw those guys win the championship (in 2019),” said senior Manny Aigbedo, who scored the winning goal in overtime. “I’m like, ‘Man, I want to do something like that one day. I want to be on the field and step up and score for the team and celebrate, and win a championship.’ I was inspired by the guys before me, and I hope that this win today will inspire players to come next through Troy Athens soccer.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties
PHOTOS (Top) Troy Athens players celebrate their overtime victory Saturday night at Grand Ledge. (Middle) Troy Athens JD Hupman (16) and Brighton’s Devlin McGinnis work to gain possession during Saturday’s Final.