Liggett Shoots, Scores first Title since 2005
June 17, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Although his team found itself in an unfamiliar situation Friday afternoon, David Dwaihy had an idea how at least the first part might play out.
As Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett readied for its first tie-breaker shootout of this spring – and in the season’s final game – Dwaihy, the eighth-year coach, decided to simply ask his players to raise their hands if they wanted one of the penalty kicks.
“I had a few in mind who I wanted to take the shot,” Dwaihy said. “I ended up just saying raise your hand if you want one. The hands flew up, and the freshmen all raised their hands.”
And then the most “courageous and bold” of them all finished the Knights’ first MHSAA championship run since she was getting ready to start kindergarten.
Freshman defender Kate Birgbauer was her team’s fourth and final shooter and put her attempt just past the crossbar into the top of the net to give Liggett a 4-2 advantage in the shootout and a 1-0 win over Montrose in the Division 4 championship game at DeMartin Stadium.
Sophomores Kelly Solak and Alexis Wenger and junior Maddie Wu also made kicks as Montrose missed their first two tries, setting Birgbauer up to end the game.
“I love shootouts. I like the pressure,” Birgbauer said. “I actually turned to my friend Izzy (Brusilow, the team’s second-leading scorer this season) and I was like, ‘Are you 100 percent sure you’re going to make this?’ She was like, ‘Oh, I’m not sure,’ so I was like, I’ll take it. So I stepped up and shot it.”
“They’re courageous and a very bold, confident group – especially our center back who scored the winner, Katie Birgbauer,” Dwaihy added. “She wanted it.”
Liggett (19-2-1) won its fifth straight District title to start this run and repeated as Regional champion as well, but hadn’t played in an MHSAA championship game since winning Division 4 in 2005.
Despite their relative youth – the Knights had only three seniors this season – a number of key players gained experience during last season’s run. But they still hadn’t been pushed to this brink during a season in which they gave up only 14 goals.
Montrose (23-4-1), meanwhile, was playing in its first MHSAA championship game in girls soccer after winning its first Regional title, and ended this season giving up only nine goals.
The more upperclassmen-laden Rams went on the attack immediately. Sophomore Remington Hobson broke away at 28:04 in the first half, but Liggett junior keeper Kara Francis jumped in front to deflect the drive away from the goal. Senior Ellory Barnette sent a header over the net off a corner with 14:04 to go in the half, and Liggett sophomore defender Teagan Cornell headed away another Montrose shot midway through the second half that would have found the net had she not dropped back to cover the corner.
The shot differential wasn’t much during regulation, with Montrose tallying nine to Liggett’s eight. But the Rams had 11 corner kicks in the game to Liggett’s one, giving them better opportunities to attack.
“That’s turned out to be our bread and butter this year, set pieces, corners, and we came close,” Montrose coach Jason Perrin said. “If you get 11 of them, you’ve got to put one in.
"But they’re very similar to us – they get 10 girls behind the ball, they clog up the passing lanes. We do that. It was kinda like playing ourselves, a little bit.”
The game appeared over before the shootout, but only for a minute, when a Liggett throw-in landed in the Montrose net with 5:09 to go in the second period of overtime – but the goal was called off because it didn’t touch a player from either team on the way.
“I think that lit a fire in our hearts a bit,” Birgbauer said. “We got mad, and we came back.”
Montrose had more experience in shootouts – they’d gone 1-1 previously, with a win that way over No. 2 Elk Rapids in the Regional Final. But Liggett apparently was plenty prepared despite a lack of shootout experience.
Liggett’s Francis and Montrose senior keeper Alexis Rush both made four saves while controlling play in front of their respective nets. Rush is one of eight seniors who will graduate from the Rams’ most successful team.
“We had a good core coming back. We won 17 games (last season). But we hadn’t won a District since 2001. So it’s hard to dream too much beyond the District or Regional level,” Perrin said. “But this team grew with confidence. Really, once we beat (Saginaw) Nouvel in the District Finals, I could just tell we had the mindset to go as far as they wanted, and they put on a good run.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Teammates converge on Liggett’s Kate Birgbauer after the freshman’s winning shot in Friday’s Division 4 Final. (Middle) Liggett’s Rebecca Lohman moves the ball to a teammate while Montrose players pursue.
Back Line Comes to Forefront as Byron Center Shuts Down Saline to Lock Up 1st Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 14, 2025
EAST LANSING – John Conlon praised his Byron Center defensive players Saturday for not just their play, but their selflessness all season.
As the Bulldogs powered through to the Division 1 Final, the backline of Carli Alexander, Ashtyn Stuck, Leah Willey and Jordan Kerns did their jobs, leaving the glory to their teammates further up the field.
But in the biggest game of the season, they went ahead and grabbed some of that glory, too.
Alexander and Stuck combined on the lone goal in Byron Center’s 1-0 victory against Saline at Michigan State University, giving the girls soccer program its first Finals title.
“Honestly, it’s awesome,” said Alexander, who provided the assist on Stuck’s goal. “It’s just unreal. I love playing defense, but when I get to play up there on the corners, it’s just awesome. And I love helping out the team; it’s great.”
Byron Center (21-1-3) had never played in a girls soccer Final prior to Saturday, but didn’t shrink from the moment as it handed Saline (21-1-2) its lone loss of the season.
That might be because it was used to playing in high-pressure situations, having won all its postseason games by a single goal, five victories coming at 1-0, and the other a 3-2 overtime win against Midland in the Regional Final.
“We talked about this back in March, that soccer is a fickle game,” Conlon said. “You can dominate and lose 1-0, or you can dominate and win 1-0, so you just have to be comfortable with that. I don’t think they understood it at first, but they do now. They ground out some great wins against some good teams.”
The biggest win against the best team included holding off top-ranked Saline’s dynamic scoring duo of Sadie Walsh and Sienna Snyder. They had combined for 50 goals (30 for Snyder, 20 for Walsh) leading up to Saturday, but were held to just five shots, with three on goal – accounting for every Saline attempt on the day.
“Walsh is a great player,” Conlon said. “She undid a couple of very good defenders running with the ball. She’s very good. We had to layer our defense and make sure she had to break through multiple levels. I think 1v1, she’s almost unguardable, so it was great team defending.”
The Bulldogs did it with composure on the back end, despite Kerns, a senior, being the only upperclassman on the starting back line. Alexander and Willey are sophomores, while Stuck is a freshman, as is starting goalkeeper Nora Schans.
“My wife started with a lot of these girls when they were 5, so we’ve been training them from a really young age,” Conlon said. “And they play at a high club level; a lot of our backline players do. They’re just great players, and they’re humble, they’re OK with defending and not scoring. They’re OK with coming away with a win and never coming away with the scoring, so our back four are fantastic.”
The scoring did come from the back four in this one, of course, and it was a beautiful set play from a Jadyn Glover corner.
Alexander met the ball near the top of the box, flicking it into a dangerous area, and Stuck struck it out of the air and into the net.
“The corner went short, so I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to try and at least get my head on it,’” Alexander said. “So I just flicked it, and Ashtyn just happened to be there and it was amazing. I’m really happy that she got that as a freshman.”
The goal was just the sixth allowed by Saline all season, and first it had allowed in the postseason. Goalkeeper Kaylee Mitzel, who made five saves Saturday, entered the game with a 0.23 goals-against average and 18 shutouts.
“I couldn’t be prouder of them,” Saline coach Leigh Rumbold said. “The amount of effort they put in day in and day out to get to this stage – getting to this stage is hard. Over the course of the boys and girls program at Saline, we’re the third team to get to this stage.
“It hurts. I don’t even have the words for it – you could obviously see it when they came off. It hurts to get to this stage and have this be our one loss, but the fact of the matter is, when you kind of take a step back and take a couple days, weeks to let it set in, it’s been an unbelievable season.”
Saline was able to put some pressure on the Bulldogs midway through the second half, but couldn’t turn it into quality chances on goal. And Byron Center did a good job of clearing the ball and moving it forward to striker Ella Alexander who, while she didn’t score, did have three shots and stressed the Hornets defense, often by herself as her team was set back defending.
“She’s a demon,” Conlon said. “She’s a demon. I jokingly have called her the Tasmanian Devil because I don’t think I’ve ever coached a front-runner who can run 80 or 90 minutes at that pace and press. I convinced her early on that, ‘You might not score, but you’ll turn balls over pressing the back line. She didn’t go in the scorebook today, but she created a lot of things for us.”
PHOTOS (Top) Byron Center keeper Nora Schans, far right, prepares to stop a shot from Saline’s Sienna Snyder on Saturday. (Middle) The Hornets’ Caylin Sturms (3) works to maintain possession despite pressure from a Bulldogs defender. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.