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. 

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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.)