De La Salle 3-Peat Adds First-Time Accomplishment to Program's Legacy
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
November 7, 2026
GRAND LEDGE — The Warren De La Salle Collegiate boys soccer team talked all season about making more history at Saturday’s Division 2 Final.
Thanks to a 3-2 win over St. Joseph, De La Salle achieved that goal by becoming the first team in the state’s two largest classifications (Class A/Division 1 and Class B/Division 2) to win three straight state championships.
The title also was the program’s eighth overall.
“It means a ton to me because it’s never been done in D1 or D2,” longtime De La Salle head coach Thaier Mukhtar said. “We talked about making history, and they absolutely made history. This was a challenging year for me. I had to take a team that won back-to-back state championships and some way, somehow, find a way to keep them hungry. You have any idea how hard that is?”
De La Salle added to the run thanks to two more goals by the school’s all-time leading goal-scorer and points-earner, senior Andrew Corder, and key contributions from others.
“This one means more to me than the first two combined,” Corder said. “After, I was just bawling my eyes out, which I really didn’t do for the first two. Knowing I played my last game for De La Salle, it sucks. But I went out on a good note.”
The Pilots (21-3-4) also found a way to do what no team had been able to do all year – crack the St. Joseph defense.
The Bears entered having allowed just four goals all year and no more than two in a game, but De La Salle scored three times.
For St. Joseph, it was a tough way to end a special season that saw the Bears advance to the Finals for the first time since finishing Class B runner-up in 1992.
“It’s a legacy,” St. Joseph head coach John Brown said. “Obviously this one game doesn’t define us. They fought until the very end.”
De La Salle took a 2-1 lead with 35 minutes remaining in the game when Corder put in a rebound from in front of the St. Joseph goal after Settimo Leone put a shot on net.
Just 2:10 later, Corder put home another rebound off a shot by sophomore Marco DiLuca to give De La Salle a 3-1 lead.
St. Joseph made it interesting late, cutting the Pilots’ lead to 3-2 with 8:12 remaining on a goal by senior Caden Shannon, who put home a loose ball in the box through a bunch of bodies following a corner kick by senior Evan Hudak.
But the Bears couldn’t get the equalizer, and De La Salle celebrated more history.
“My challenge to them was simply, ‘OK, I nitpicked everything. I corrected all your mistakes. Win or lose, I went back and corrected all your mistakes. I hammered you over and over again,’” Mukhtar said. “I said to them, ‘I needed to get you here. The coaching staff got you here. Now it’s your game. I’m done coaching you. You now go out there and you decide whether you want this game bad enough or not.”
De La Salle opened the scoring with 28:35 left in the first half on a goal by Leone, who jumped on a loose ball in the box in front of the St. Joseph goal and fired it in.
The Bears tied the game with 6:30 remaining in the first half on a goal by senior Remy Kelm, who possessed the ball at the top of the De La Salle box, turned around and fired a shot that bent inside the far post.
PHOTOS (Top) De La Salle’s Andrew Corder sends a shot toward the St. Joseph goal Saturday. (Middle) The Pilots’ Kayden Risch (21) and St. Joseph’s Reece Crawford contend for the ball. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
After Delay, Greenhills Storms to 1st Title
November 4, 2017
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
ROCHESTER HILLS – It wasn’t a pot of gold at the end of a literal rainbow over Stoney Creek High School’s field on Saturday, but an MHSAA championship trophy was still a great prize for Ann Arbor Greenhills.
For the first time in school history, Greenhills is a Finals champion in boys soccer following a 1-0 win over Kalamazoo Hackett in the Division 4 title game.
After the teams broke off for halftime with the game scoreless, lightning was spotted to start what turned out to be an 88-minute weather delay.
Skies eventually cleared, and the teams began the second half playing under a visible rainbow high above the field.
With 23:58 left, Greenhills made its trophy claim.
After earning a corner kick with a rush down the sideline and cross toward the middle of the field that was deflected out of bounds by a Hackett defender, Greenhills senior Jerry Tucker put home a perfect service into the box off of the corner by senior teammate Matthew Pumphrey for the game’s only goal.
Tucker said he deflected the ball into the wide-open net with his hip/waist area.
“In the moment, I saw it was going over the guy’s head and I couldn’t go too low,” Tucker said. “It went off my waist and into the goal.”
From there, Greenhills (20-6-1) didn’t sit back with the lead and managed to put a good amount of pressure on Hackett without giving up any dangerous counterattacks.
The Irish did manage to earn two corner kicks after the goal, but they were harmlessly cleared away.
Greenhills had lost in its three previous MHSAA championship game appearances, the most recent in 2010.
“To be able to win is very difficult to describe,” said Greenhills head coach Lucian Popescu, who coached that runner-up team in 2010.“It’s hard to have words about it.”
It certainly was noteworthy that Greenhills was able to shut out Hackett, given the Irish (19-2-2) entered the game having scored 34 goals in six playoff games and hadn’t been shut out since its season opener against Mattawan.
“We emphasized simple things we needed to do,” Popescu said. “Instead of marking the forwards, we were actually looking to play more aggressive to try and stop the pass to them. I think we were able to be successful most of the time.”
Hackett head coach Ian Troutman certainly had lofty praise for the defensive effort turned in by Greenhills.
“They had a great game plan and their back line, in particular their holding midfielders, did a great job keeping us limited in time and space on the ball, which we are not used to,” Troutman said. “We are used to having the lion’s share of possession. We had a little bit of a hard time controlling the ball in their half. Their intensity and speed on defense really helped them out.”
Both teams had to deal with a rare November thunderstorm that forced the lengthy delay, which started at halftime when the teams huddled up for talks with their coaches.
Tucker said he and the rest of his teammates stayed off their phones during the delay, opting for other ways to kill the time.
“We ate come Cliff bars and we stayed calm,” Tucker said. “We kept our phones away and were trying to stay focused on the game. We are good at keeping our mindset.”
Greenhills did, and that trophy at the end of the rainbow Saturday is now headed to its school forever.
PHOTOS: (Top) Greenhills players celebrate during Saturday’s Division 4 championship win. (Middle) Hackett’s Daniel Amat (4) attempts to gain possession.