Dynamic Duo Leads Hackett Title Hunt

By Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com

September 18, 2017

KALAMAZOO — When he was just 3 years old, Max Keenan was out in the yard kicking around a soccer ball.

With a father who played and coached professional soccer, Keenan was not just kicking, he was learning.

“We’d go in our front yard and we had a net and he’d just come out and play with me,” the Hackett Catholic Prep junior said. “He’d have me dribble, shoot, do whatever.”

Those fundamentals have paid off.

Keenan is part of an Irish squad that is 6-0-2 so far with an eye gazing toward the MHSAA Division 4 soccer tournament in November. Led by Keenan and junior Brennan Creek and bolstered by an experienced and talented cast, Hackett debuted in the first state coaches poll of this season as the No. 4 team in its division. 

The Irish have flirted with a Division 4 title, losing to Burton Genesee Christian, 3-2 in overtime, in the Final two years ago and Muskegon Catholic Central, 4-3 in overtime, in a Semifinal last year.

“The special part for me is I played Michigan high school soccer,” said Max’s dad, Chris Keenan, who was born in Manchester, England, and came to the United States at age 14. “There’s a tradition here, and to watch Maxwell go through it and play in those events is just unbelievable.

“His freshman year, Hackett played in state final. He had an unbelievable season. I played in the (MHSAA) Final with Gull Lake and actually lost that game, 3-2 (to Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett in 1983).”

Chris Keenan also was runner-up for Michigan’s Mr. Soccer Award in 1984 and made the all-state Dream Team.

Now he watches his son begin the journey.

“Maxwell has grown up around soccer his whole life,” his dad said. “I would watch soccer all the time, so he would grow up almost like a gym rat.

“He is nationally known. We have a lot of colleges right now interested in him.”

Powerful pair

Max Keenan and good friend Creek give the Irish a powerful 1-2 punch.

Keenan leads the team with 12 goals, while Creek has nine. Each has four assists.

Last year, Creek was second team all-state and Keenan third team.

“Max and Brennan were on the field together from probably 4 years old,” Chris Keenan said. “They’ve participated and trained. They’ve got these skill sets.

“They’re both being looked at for D-I (college soccer). For me, I look at those two, I think having each other as teammates they’re a force to be reckoned with right now.”

The Irish prepared for the Southwestern Athletic Conference season with a tough nonleague schedule, including Division 2 defending champ Mattawan (0-0 tie) and D-3 reigning champ Grand Rapids Catholic Central (2-1 win).

“We’re fortunate to have all sorts of competitive teams in our conference and nonconference schedules,” Hackett coach Ian Troutman said. “Divisions 1 through 4, the teams that we play or scrimmage, most of our offensive players make an impact right away. But Brennan and Max definitely draw a lot of defensive attention.

“They really help us open up everything else, and in some circumstances they can be dominant on their own.”

Said Creek: “The harder competition makes us play more defensive. In the playoffs, defense wins games. It’s just preparing us for the best.

“The Mattawan game didn’t feel like a win, but it was definitely a success.” The win against GRCC “was a big one; that was huge.”

Troutman took over the Irish reins three years ago.

With the open position and with his son entering his freshman year, Chris Keenan said he had no desire to apply for the job, although he has a solid pedigree: two NCAA Division I national championship games as a player; induction into three halls of fame including Gull Lake’s; his selection as the 14th pick in the 1988 professional draft; a pro career with the San Diego Nomads and Detroit Rockers; plus his time as a pro soccer coach and owner of Kingdom Indoor Center since 2004.

“I don’t coach my son,” Keenan said. “I am listed as a volunteer assistant coach at Hackett. I don’t go to the tryouts, I don’t go to the training sessions. I go and sit on the bench. 

“The head coach makes substitutions, gives the team talk. I like being on the bench to be involved, to watch. Ian’s a really good coach. I want my relationship to be dad-son, not coach.”

Building a contender

Starting on the varsity team as a freshman was a challenge, Max Keenan said.

“It was pretty hard,” he said. “We had big seniors I had to go against, but I think after a while they started giving me more respect after I kept scoring goals and playing well.”

He and Creek grew up playing together on club teams and push each other on the field.

“It’s just kind of a competition,” Keenan said. “We always try to one-up each other. Since we’ve been playing together for who knows how many years, we just have a really great connection. 

“If he moves, I know where I’m gonna go and he’s gonna give me the ball. It’s just like we’re on the same page every single game.”

In spite of losing all-state goalkeeper Matthew Carpenter to graduation, the Irish have two solid stoppers in senior Joe Carr and sophomore Breyton Franklin.

“I think the two goalkeepers we have that were switched back and forth have benefited from the competition and just driving each other to improve,” Troutman said.

“Breyton’s done very well and he’s certainly a starting goalkeeper some days, and he can come off the bench and make an impact as well.”

Troutman said Carr has been a platoon player since his sophomore season.

“He’s a really smart kid who understands the game,” Troutman said. “He’s athletic and he’s got great hands.

“The skill set from baseball has transitioned well to goalie, and it has served us well in many games.”

Carr was a defender before going in net.

“It helps me read what the defense is going to do because I can think, ‘What would I do?’” he said. “It helps me kind of predict how the defense is going to move with the attacking players.”

He said sharing time in net can be difficult.

“That just means I have to work harder in practice,” Carr said. “Usually when I’m on the sidelines, coach has me throw on my game jersey and I go in on defense or in the game somehow.”

Getting in a playoff game, even briefly, whetted Franklin's appetite.

“It was during the playoffs (last season) and I got to have one save against Lawton, and then I came right back out,” he said. “It was a great experience. 

“Watching how the game’s played at the varsity level drastically improved my view of the game: the increased speed of the game, what I have to do. My expectations rose. It gave me a better standard.”

Junior Aidan Gillig is third in team scoring with four goals and four assists, while sophomore Stephen Hough has three goals and two assists.

More keys to this season will be sophomores Connor Wurtz, Hough and Anders Johansson, Troutman said.

“They started in the state semifinal game last year as freshmen,” he added. “They continue to build off that experience from last year.”

Keenan and Creek are not only Irish teammates, but they have three Super Y League national titles between them. Each has one and they have one together playing on the Kingdom club team.

Creek sees a difference between his roles on his high school and club teams.

On the club team, players are the same age but “in high school, I try to help out the younger kids and help them improve.

“The competitive side of soccer makes it fun. That’s what I enjoy,” he added. “Since I’ve been younger, day in and day out, I’ve been working hard and practicing every day. Getting frustrated at myself for messing up is probably the hardest part.”

Other seniors on the team are Jacob Wurtz, who was all-state honorable mention last season, Matthew Sherwood, Jackson Bradshaw and Johnathon Benjamin. Other sophomores are Daniel Amat, Ryan Cook, Michael Benjamin and Ricardo Ochoa. Freshmen are Charles Prom and Tobias Kuhn.

Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Kalamazoo Hackett's Brennan Creek, left, and Max Keenan share a laugh this season. (Middle top) Keenan controls the ball during play this fall. (Middle) Hackett coach Ian Troutman and Chris Keenan. (Middle below) Creek works to keep possession while getting away from a defender. (Below) Senior keeper Joe Carr and sophomore keeper Breyton Franklin. (Action photos by Jennifer Bodway Burhans; head shots by Pam Shebest.)

Learning as They Play, Algonac Boys Soccer Back on Pitch for 1st Time since 2016

By Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com

September 18, 2024

Zeke Stiltner knew what he was signing up for when he agreed to join the Algonac boys soccer team.

Bay & ThumbAs a senior, joining a program that hadn’t taken the field since 2016, he wasn’t expecting many – if any – wins. He wasn’t looking for a grand send-off. He was simply happy to be there at the beginning of something new.

“It’s such a unique experience,” said Stiltner, who played travel soccer in California prior to moving to Algonac as a freshman. “You don’t get the opportunity to build a brand-new team and build a bit of a legacy.”

Stiltner and his Algonac teammates are part of a restarted program that has been dormant for eight years. While the team has begun 0-7, just being on the field at all is a success. And growing the team to 17 active players, with just four seniors and no juniors, is more than they could have imagined.

“I don’t think there was any expectation of measuring success with wins and losses and the record,” Algonac coach Lance Whitney said. “We all knew the wins and losses was probably not going to be great. Really, we went into the beginning of the year teaching the kids how to play soccer and have fun.”

It was Algonac wrestling coach Brian Ranger who had originally brought the idea of reviving the soccer program to Whitney when the latter began teaching in the district in 2022. The two had gone to high school and wrestled together at Richmond, and Ranger – who serves as the team’s assistant coach – was looking for something for his wrestlers to do in the offseason, as Algonac was also reviving its football program at the time.

“Half the team is wrestling kids,” Whitney said. “He kind of used it as a way for his wrestlers to do something other than nothing if they weren’t playing football or running cross country. Some of them came out because they just wanted to do something, and a lot of them were recruited by Ranger.”

Whitney had coached at Richmond for a decade, his last season with the boys in 2022. He’s also a coach at Thundercats travel club, where his daughter and Ranger’s daughter had played. 

That time included plenty of success and a good number of teams filled with experienced players. 

Algonac started this season with three players who had played organized soccer.

“I think for me, you change your whole approach,” Whitney said. “You have to kind of balance that I’m only going to teach them so much technical stuff in two and a half months, but I have to, at some point, teach them, ‘Here’s the formation. Here are positions. Here are responsibilities.’ What I did in August is brought them all together for a week and said, ‘This is how you strike a ball. How you pass. How you play defense.’ All the technical stuff you can do.

“I’m not pretending this is the type of team where we’re going to be able to drop a ball at the goalie’s feet and play out of the back. But we do at least one technical skill (in practice), then I treat them like I do any other team I coach, even my highest-level girls team. We do Rondos, possession – try and let the game teach them how to play.”

But even for the few experienced players, that first week was more than enough. Simply being on the field playing was a breath of fresh air.

“I enjoyed it,” senior Griffin Degowske said. “That first practice, it was just fun to be out there. I was just glad we had a team.”

Goal-setting and expectations were also on a different level for the Muskrats. After losing their first two matches by goal-differential rule in the first half, the goal was to get to a second half. When that was accomplished, the goal was to complete a game without a mercy rule ending it.

They’ve accomplished that in both of their past two games, even scoring their first goal since 2016 in a 7-1 loss to Armada on Sept. 12.

The goal was scored by freshman Oliver Geck off a corner kick. While it made the score 5-1 midway through the second half, you couldn’t tell from the celebration.

“They celebrated like they won the game,” Whitney said. “It was really awesome, especially for the kid that scored. Oliver is a freshman, and he’s never really played before. He’s a pretty athletic kid, and the ball was bouncing around and he struck it. We were close (to scoring again) a couple times (Monday) night.”

While the team is still growing skill wise, Whitney is continually impressed with what they’re giving him from an effort standpoint. The team’s toughness and athleticism – no doubt buoyed by the influx of wrestlers – also has stood out.

“Teaching them is a lot different than teaching a (kids) team since they were 6(-years-old), and they’re 13 now,” Whitney said. “But they’re starting to put things together. A lot of the things they do, they can get to the right place, they can move, they can get to where they need to be positionally. It’s just the lack of technical skills right now that will mess up plays.”

Most important, at least for the future of the program, are the numbers. With 17 on the roster and 13 eligible to come back for not just 2025, but 2026, there’s a clear path forward for Muskrats soccer.

“It is amazing,” Whitney said. “It’s a step in the right direction for the school and the program, and all of those kids individually, too.”

Paul CostanzoPaul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.

PHOTO Algonac’s Louis LaParl (2) clears the ball during a game against Croswell-Lexington. (Photo courtesy of the Algonac boys soccer program.)