Fairy-tale Finish Fits Notre Dame Prep Fine
June 18, 2016
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
EAST LANSING – Pontiac Notre Dame Prep senior midfielder Rosella LoChirco called her team’s victory Saturday in the MHSAA Division 2 girls soccer championship game “a Cinderella story.”
It’s doubtful that Cinderella would put up any sort of dispute.
Notre Dame Prep won its first MHSAA girls soccer championship with a 2-1 victory in an amazing eight-shot shootout with Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern at DeMartin Stadium on the campus of Michigan State University.
A team doesn’t normally win an MHSAA Finals championship by having a player score her first goal of the season to tie the game with less than a minute to go in regulation. If that is not enough of a “Cinderella story,” the best is yet to come.
Notre Dame Prep went to a sweeper to use as the goalkeeper in the shootout, a player who had not played in goal at any level in two years.
Junior Eileen Haig made two saves and two other Forest Hills Northern shots were off-target. Then, the winning goal in the eighth round of the shootout came from LoChirco, who buried the ball into the left side of the net to give her team a deciding 5-4 edge and set off a wild celebration.
After 100 minutes of game action and seven rounds of a shootout, a banged-up LoChirco ran to her spot in front of the net to take the shot.
“After we went back and forth so much, I was just ready to get it in the net and end the game,” LoChirco said. “I was a little apprehensive because I felt some muscle pulls during the game, so I was kind of nervous, but I saw a big, open spot in the net, and once it went in, it was craziness, jumping around and being happy.”
Forest Hills Northern had a chance to win it in the seventh shootout round, but senior Morgan O’Neill kept her team alive by beating the Forest Hills Northern goalkeeper to the left side.
As Payton Williams, Olivia Mears, Stephanie Maniaci, O’Neill and LoChirco were scoring for the Fighting Irish, Haig was doing her best in net against the Huskies. She made a save on the first shot of the shootout, and she said that helped her feel comfortable.
“It was amazing,” Haig said. “I could tell which way she was going, and I got some tips before I went in.”
Notre Dame Prep (21-1-3) used Haley Williams in goal during regulation and the two 10-minute overtime sessions. However, the plan all along was to pull her in the event of a shootout, a situation that coach Jim Stachura did not want.
“We didn’t want to get to that point,” he said. “We were pressing with three and four and only two in the back to press in the second overtime. We did everything we needed to do except put the ball in the back of the net more consistently. Their keeper had a whole lot to do with that.”
The original plan was to play freshman Morgan Verheyen in the net, but she was in Florida for an AAU volleyball tournament. That left Stachura and his staff guessing what to do in the shootout. He did not want to use Williams in goal because of a lack of experience in such situations.
“Eileen plays a high level in club soccer, and I think that settles the nerves,” Stachura said. “This is Haley’s first year as a starter, and sometimes you have to go with an instinct, and our gut instinct was to put Eileen in for that.”
Goalkeeper coach Ryan Tadajewski told Haig about the potential move at the end of regulation.
“He put the idea in my head, and it went out of my head in overtime,” Haig said. “I used to play in goal for my club team but stopped a couple of years ago. I knew I had to do it, and once I got in there it was complete calm.”
“I knew I could save some of them even though I hadn’t been in net in a while. I’m good at jumping and guessing.”
The shootout would not have happened without the late heroics of Payton Williams, a junior defender who scored her first goal of the season on a free kick with 41 seconds left in regulation and the Fighting Irish trailing 1-0. The free kick was set up by a hand ball by the Huskies.
As Williams prepared to take her shot from the far right spot near the top of the box, the left side of the goal was left open. Williams spotted it and drilled it into the open net.
“Payton stepped in and, with ice in her veins, she buried it,” Stachura said. “It was a great strike. As long as she had it on frame, I thought she’d have a good shot at it, and she absolutely buried it. It was a phenomenal strike, and it was nice to see it bulge in the back of the net.”
For Williams, the moment was something she never could have imagined.
“It was a great feeling, especially considering that it was my first goal and it came in the state championship game,” she said. “I saw that side was open, so I just kind of went for it. It was amazing to know that as time was winding down that we came back and did it.”
Notre Dame Prep controlled the play for the most part, but junior Natalie Belsito gave Forest Hills Northern a 1-0 lead in the 46th minute when she was able to control a bouncing ball in front of the net and direct it into the goal.
The Fighting Irish had a 16-8 edge in shots and a 12-2 advantage on corner kicks, but if not for that late free kick by Payton Williams, the Huskies might have won their first MHSAA championship. And they would have had their own “Cinderella story” as they only had one senior, were unranked and did not win their conference.
“I’m proud of them,” said Forest Hills Northern coach Daniel Siminski, whose team finished 16-4-4. “It’s a really big field, and it was really hot, and Notre Dame carried most of the play. We did a good job of keeping it tight. It was 41 seconds, so what can you say? It’s soccer.
“You can’t blame anyone. Not everybody gets to be here, and you flip a coin in a shootout. If I had a chance to do it again, I’d do it again. It’s difficult to get here, and we were unranked all season, so for the girls to get here is amazing. Nobody would have gambled on us.”
Junior Amanda Young, the Forest Hills Northern goalkeeper, kept her team in the game with seven saves, and a few of them were sensational.
“Two saves really stand out,” Stachura said. “On one of them, Celia Gaynor got in six yards out, and Young made a kick save with her foot. Another one was one that squirted out from eight yards out, and she got her hand on it and kept it out.
“If either of those goals go in, it’s a different game. Give credit to them. Penalty kicks is never a great way to lose, but when you’re on the winning side, it’s a lot of fun.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Notre Dame Prep players celebrate the game-tying goal by Payton Williams (19). (Middle) Eileen Haig, normally a sweeper for the Fighting Irish, moved into net for the shootout.
TC West's Wheelock Still 'Living My Dreams' as CMU Assistant Soccer Coach
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
July 22, 2025
Keyton Wheelock has experienced soccer in several states since she earned her way into the MHSAA record books playing goalie for Traverse City West.
Wheelock, who once owned the career and single season shutout records in Michigan, has traveled extensively to play and coach.
But today’s she’s all but home and still coaching women’s college soccer.
“Hometown roots, hometown kid — that would be my thing,” Wheelock said this summer while sitting on a bench memorializing her grandparents in a park near where she grew up. “It’s lights out coming back here. This will always be home.”
Wheelock, now coaching at Central Michigan University, conducted her youth soccer camp this summer at Long Lake Township Park, the home of some of her favorite childhood memories. The area is also still home to most of her family.
“This area means so much to me, and I want to keep coming back and giving a little bit of soccer back,” Wheelock said, noting drives home of 16 hours from South Dakota and Alabama and 12 from Tennessee and Minnesota. “This is home to me, no matter where I've been, and now I'm only two and a half hours away. This has always been home. These people always have my back. My grandparents lived here. My parents lived here and still live here, and they will live here the rest of their lives in this area.”
Wheelock, a 2004 TC West grad, set the career shoutout mark at 61 with a win at Cheboygan in May of her senior spring. She also had the most shutouts recorded in a single season, 18, during her junior year. Both marks have since been surpassed. Her career shutout mark remains No. 4 all-time, however. The single season mark is tied for sixth on the all-time list.
Both still stand as records at West, where Wheelock was coached by Jason Carmien, now the school’s athletic director. Carmien found it hard to believe Wheelock graduated 20 years ago as he reflected on her passion for the sport.
“Keyton’s family was unbelievably supportive, and that determination to follow her soccer path still exists today,” Carmien pointed out. “She was an outstanding goalkeeper at West and has had an impressive coaching career. I was glad to see her land at CMU — she has certainly thrived there with the Chips.”
Wheelock played high school soccer during the earliest days of social media, so the postings that would follow her accomplishments if they occurred now didn’t really exist. But she vividly recalls the pressure her local newspaper and television stations inadvertently applied as she got closer to the career mark.
“The record for career shutouts in high school was something that I chased all the way through my senior year, and it was one of those things we knew it was going to come,” she said. “It felt so stressful at the time in high school. … Everybody kept asking, ‘When are you going to break it?’ It was just was a matter of time.”
It was far from easy, but she did it with the help of a strong defense.
“I had a great defensive line in front of me doing their job to cut my angles and make my job easy,” Wheelock said. “We had some rough games that we should have won — either we gave up a PK in it and I couldn't save the PK or, you know, I made some mistakes and didn't hold the clean sheet.”
After leaving West, Wheelock played in two seasons at South Dakota University. She played out the remainder of her eligibility for Concordia in St. Paul, Minn, before getting into coaching.
Her college playing days were injury-marred, and her playing career ended with an injury suffered at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.
“It was kind of like a tryout-type thing with the U.S. system out there,” Wheelock recalled. “I came back, finished out my degree and started coaching because I knew at that point I wasn't going to be able to play anymore.”
Her first college coaching job was a five-year stint as assistant coach for Tusculum College in Tennessee. She then was an assistant at South Alabama for three seasons.
Before her 30th birthday, Wheelock got the opportunity to become a head coach at a Division I school, Louisiana Monroe. She was named Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year in 2016 after leading her team to its first conference tournament appearance.
“You know, when you're not 30 and you get an opportunity to be a DI coach, you kind of take it,” Wheelock said. “And I jumped on it.”
Wheelock spent four years at Louisiana Monroe before the pandemic resulted in her returning to Michigan and finding the vacancy at CMU.
She is thrilled to see how the landscape in women’s athletics has changed for the better, with growth in numbers, skills and support for high school and college programs.
“Women's sports have taken off — there's so many opportunities out there for women now,” Wheelock excitedly said. “At the end of the day, women's sports matter, and there's enough people out there now pushing that forward.”
The record-setting keeper credits the U.S. women’s national team’s performance during the 1999 World Cup for putting women's soccer on the map.
Wheelock attended one of the U.S. team’s games – a 7-1 victory over Nigeria in Chicago. With a few members of her family as well as teammates Jackie Keller and Bree Hall, Wheelock saw U.S. goalie Briana Scurry make one of her 137 international appearances – this one taking place just a few matches before Scurry’s memorable world championship penalty kick performance. Nigeria did get one past Scurry for the game’s first goal, Wheelock recalled.
“My uncle was able to get us tickets, and we actually had front row seats to that game at Soldier Field — and it was a phenomenal atmosphere,” Wheelock said of the event drawing more than 65,000 fans. “It was unbelievable to all of a sudden see it at a women’s sporting event.”
Wheelock had some hopes of playing for the national team and professional soccer right up to her career-ending injury. She admitted she would have loved to continue to play, but notes she’s found a home in coaching.
“I'm living my dreams,” she said. “Obviously I would have loved to play professional, but injuries happen. And, I was never the tallest goalkeeper out there. Lots of people said I wasn't going to be able to do what I did, because I was pretty short.”
Relationships with past coaches and past and current players have brought her just as much satisfaction as playing. And she’s happy to give back to the game.
“This game has given so much to me,” she said. “And for me to give a little bit back to it is what I want. I can't imagine doing anything else.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Keyton Wheelock makes a save for Traverse City West; at right, Wheelock plays keeper during her youth camp this summer. (Middle) Wheelock, now an assistant at Central Michigan. (Below) Wheelock, far right, cheers on the U.S. national team in Chicago in 1999. (Youth camp photo by Tom Spencer, CMU photo courtesy of CMU; all other photos courtesy of Keyton Wheelock.)