No Denying Timko in Run to 100 Goals
April 9, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The grinding force of Taylor Timko's attacks on the soccer goal comes out in her coach Jim Stachura’s voice as he describes them.
It’s not so much something technical – although the Pontiac Notre Dame Prep senior has plenty of skill – but more a mix of athleticism, vision and drive that sets the all-state midfielder apart from most in Michigan this spring.
“And the more and more she gets denied something she wants,” Stachura said, “the more and more she’ll try it.”
In a word – is “relentless” the right one?
“That was our team word last year,” Timko answered, noting the irony of the question.
“Relentless” can have a negative connotation, meaning strict or harsh. But this is relentless in a good way – determined, unyielding, and at times unstoppable.
On Tuesday, Timko became the 41st player in MHSAA girls soccer history to score 100 goals, netting three in Notre Dame Prep's 6-0 win over Madison Heights Bishop Foley.
She has 13 goals in six games this season, to go with 39 goals as a junior, 29 as a sophomore and 21 as a freshman.
“The best part of soccer is definitely scoring. I think it’s cool that that’s the point of the game,” Timko said. “If you have a shot, I say definitely take it. It’s like anything; if there’s an opportunity there, take it and run with it. It’s kind of a motto, I guess.”
She’s made the most of many as she enters the heart of her final high school spring.
Timko made headlines this fall as the kicker for a Notre Dame Prep football team that finished a solid 8-3 with help from her left leg. She was named Homecoming Queen, accepting the crown in football uniform during halftime of the Fighting Irish’s Sept. 27 game against Detroit Loyola.
She’s also a decorated track standout, as a freshman taking third in the 400 meters and running on the fourth-place 1,600 relay at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final, then running on the third-place 1,600 relay as a sophomore. And she’s a nearly straight-A student, even as AP calculus is making that pursuit a little tougher of late.
But soccer certainly is her best game, and her impressive scoring totals have come against some of the toughest competition in Michigan. Last season’s schedule included the top-two ranked teams in Division 2 – Detroit Catholic League cross-division rivals Livonia Ladywood and Bloomfield Hills Marian – plus another top-10 Division 3 team in Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard and eventual Division 1 champion Troy.
But Timko and classmate Lindsey Klei keyed an offense attack that drove the Irish all the way to the Division 3 championship game – which despite a 1-0 loss to Grand Rapids South Christian made prophetic a conversation Stachura had with a coaching friend as Timko was just about to take off on her 100-goal career four years ago.
“He said, you know, when you get someone who’s going to score 20 goals for you, you’re going to play in a state final,” Stachura recalled. “Just having a goal scorer like that gives you the missing link. We've always had some good players ... but getting the girls to rally around her has been a big key.”
After the 21-goal debut, Stachura thought Timko’s total might fall some the next season because Notre Dame Prep graduated two all-staters including now-Oakland University contributor Katrina Stencel. But Timko scored eight more that spring than the one before, and then upped her total another 10 goals in 2013 – even as the schedule was toughened.
Many of those goals have come on her go-to move, a fake right and cut to a shot with her left foot. She likes headers too – admitting, a little tongue-in-cheek perhaps, that at 5-foot-7, “I've got hops,” she said.
Timko also has three assists this season and 39 for her career, and should push to end up among the MHSAA career points leaders as well before this spring is done.
“Thinking back to my freshman year, I never had specific goals of what I wanted to accomplish. Just everyday stuff on the field – at practice being the best player type of things,” Timko said. “Even for a particular season, I didn't say I want to score 20 goals this year; it’s more game to game goals.
“It’s such a blessing how far we've been able to come, and the things we've been able to accomplish. I can honestly say I never expected this.”
But she’s played a huge part in – as Stachura said earlier this year – setting a standard both on the field and in her school.
Timko will head to the University of Michigan this fall to play soccer but also because she’s an outstanding and hard-working student. Her childhood aspiration was to become a veterinarian, but she’s leaning now toward something in the medical or kinesiology fields – “somewhere I could help people,” she said.
She’s a member of the National Honor Society, Students Against Destructive Decisions and her school’s Varsity Club, and serves as a student ambassador for Notre Dame Prep and math tutor to classmates.
“She’s somebody both the boys and girls can look up to – the guys give her street cred because she played football, and the girls see a great athlete and a role model,” Notre Dame Prep assistant athletic director Dean Allen said. “Some kids maybe in general get big heads on their shoulders, as stud athletes. But she's really humble."
Football was “inspiring,” allowing Timko as the kicker to observe the intensity she works to bring to the soccer field. She also learned a valuable lesson about pressure – what it takes to come through when, as a football kicker, she had only one shot at the goal and only a few seconds to execute.
Timko is loving serving as soccer captain for a third straight season, especially as she gets to share those duties with classmates Klei, Bella Galloway and Lauren Gunterman.
And that lesson in pressure could pay off big as she and the Irish continue pursuing the one prize they were denied at the end of last season.
Remember what Stachura said about when Timko gets denied?
“Relentless is definitely a way to live,” Timko said. “Everyone faces obstacles, and there are easy solutions too. But you have to keep pushing through.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep’s Taylor Timko moves the ball upfield during last season’s Division 3 Final. (Middle) Timko (22), with her teammates and coach Jim Stachura, pose with the congratulatory sign she received from them after scoring her 100th career goal Tuesday. (Middle photo courtesy of Pontiac Notre Dame Prep High School.)
Success Comes with Stories as Portage Central Surges Toward Postseason
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
May 21, 2025
PORTAGE — The urge to play varsity soccer was so strong for Allison “Ricky” Rearick that as a sophomore she agreed to become an obstacle while opponents tried to boot balls past her into the net.
A defender all her life, the Portage Central senior had to completely change her game to become a goalkeeper, using her hands instead of her head to advance the ball.
She also had a problem trying not to duck when the ball came blitzing at her.
“That was my biggest problem coming in,” she laughed.
Three years later, Rearick is an old hand in net for Portage Central, allowing just 11 goals over 14 games this spring while leading the Mustangs to a 12-3 record. She has seven shutouts.
As Portage Central readies for its Division 1 District opener Tuesday against Mattawan at Kalamazoo Loy Norrix, Rearick's story is among those that have made this a special season.
Her comfort in net was not always the case.
“We were just joking with her the other day,” coach Tim Halloran said. “Her first game was against Hudsonville, at Hudsonville, the No. 1 team in the state at the time.
“She had been training for six or seven days. Right before the game, she went to my assistant, Ashleigh Garrod, and said ‘Can I practice punting the ball? I don’t know how to punt the ball,’ which is a big part of the game.”
That’s when the team’s goalkeeper coach, Brad Conway, stepped in.
"He helped me my whole sophomore year,” Rearick said. “When we got to Districts and Regional time, I was starting to feel pretty comfortable.”
Halloran said he knew Rearick would be able to handle the new position.
“Through her freshman year she played defense,” he said. “She’s tall (5-foot-9) and she played basketball, so she can use her hands.”
Rearick said the transition from defense to goalkeeper was easier because “after basketball, I knew how to catch a ball, which was good. The jumping aspect of basketball also helped.”
It all came together in that first game at Hudsonville, a 2-1 Portage Central win.
“I was so nervous, probably the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life,” she said. “I was so scared. I was still very nervous the next couple games, but it was so much fun.”
Even more fun was being named all-state honorable mention her junior year after giving up just eight goals all season.
As she winds down her senior campaign, Rearick said, “This group of girls, playing with them has been amazing. I’ve actually learned to enjoy the position.
"It’s a lot of pressure at times, but when you have a big game you’re able to help your team with a big save. It feels amazing.”
Senior teammate Kaeli Mason appreciates having her buddy in goal.
“Ricky’s just amazing,” Mason said. “She saves us so much. She’s an overall great person, so it’s great to have her back there.
“We all talk a lot on the field. Communication is a big part of defense on the field.”
Building a family bond
Portage Central certainly appreciates that back-line bond. Mason has had to work her way back into soccer shape after breaking her leg and missing all of last season.
She played in two scrimmages last spring but knew something wasn’t right.
“Maxing in my weightlifting class and tryouts were the same week,” Mason said. “I think it was just overload.
“I limped and had to keep going back to the doctor until they finally figured it out with an MRI.”
Mason was anxious to get back on the pitch.
“It was a struggle, but going through all our preseason stuff and playing travel helped me get back (into shape), and working out on my own,” she said.
Mason also had her soccer-playing family to support her, including her mom, Tami Mason, who is a 1993 Portage Central grad.
The senior said her mother encouraged her not only to play, but also to make the team a family.
Tami Mason was also a defender in her day, “although they called it stopper back then,” she said, noting that team pictures still line the halls at the school.
“It’s kind of funny because all my kids have gone there and they say, ‘Oh, there’s Mom,’” she laughed.
Looking back at her high school days, Tami Mason said soccer was the highlight.
“The camaraderie with all my teammates, they were like family,” she said. “It was such a high going out on that field, knowing you had to do whatever you could to win those games and do your best.
“It was literally my favorite part of school. I’m still pretty close to a lot of the kids I grew up playing with. I still have a photo album with all the clippings from back in the day.”
One part of this year’s Mustangs team is a throwback to Mason’s era.
“It’s funny because (this year’s team) calls themselves the P.C. Bad Boys," she said. “Back in the day, there’s a cop song “Bad Boys” so we used to walk out on the field back then with a jambox on our shoulders playing that.
“It’s so funny to see that now they have T-shirts and refer to themselves as that. I’m like, that started back in the day with us. It’s kinds of surreal.”
In a quirky twist, Halloran also coached Tami Mason, although it was on a travel team, not at Portage Central.
Reality check
While Kaeli Mason worked her way back to the team after rehabilitating her broken leg, Halloran has returned from a scare that was much more serious.
Doctors discovered he had kidney cancer in August 2021.
“They took the whole kidney, so I am cancer-free on the inside and I have skin cancer on the outside from 30-some odd years of being out in the sun,” he said. “Luckily, I didn’t have to do any radiation or chemo. It was just learning to live with one organ fewer than I had.”
That also changed his perspective on life.
“I got married (in December, 2021, to Tammy Dykema-Halloran) and I think I’ve taken a step back,” he said. “We were together for 12 years and we said, ‘Hey, cancer is something we’re not going to mess with.’
“You don’t know what’s going to happen. So we got married, and it’s been a very calming influence. I’m still very passionate about being out here and I love doing this, but I’m sure I took it way too seriously in other points in my career and lost a lot of sleep and a lot of hair and have a lot of gray hair from worrying about stuff.”
***
Besides Rearick and Mason, Halloran has five other seniors on the team: Lauren Tooley, Anna Pellegrini, Kyra Gardner, Katie McLaughlin and Madison Cutler.
Juniors are Sophia Sanborn, Janelle Yao, Claire Pierce, Delaney O’Reilly, Ella Bish and Maya Moulton. Sophomores are Ally Areaux, Kaitlyn Lam, Lily Dimick, Addison Giebel, Lily Grueter, Jenna Dietzel, Jillian Mills, and Claire VanderRoest; and the two freshmen are McKinley O’Reilly and Marley Righter.
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) Portage Central keeper Allison Rearick, far right, prepares to launch the ball during a game against Kalamazoo Loy Norrix. (2) Rearick considers her options with a teammate and opponent in front of her. (3) At left, Kaeli Mason plays this season and walks arm-in-arm with her mother Tami, also holding the trophy at far right during her playing days. (4) Portage Central coach Tim Halloran. (Rearick photo by Jim Cottrell. Mason photos courtesy of Tami Mason. Halloran photo by Pam Shebest.)