CADILLAC — The saying goes that you can’t teach height, and that was likely on Shelby coach Joe Gorton’s mind as he studied film of Ovid-Elsie prior to Tuesday’s regional semifinal game - a contest the Tigers lost 3-0.
“It’s like they’re all carbon copies of one another,” Gorton said of the Marauders, who stormed through their conference schedule at 12-0 and had beaten seven consecutive opponents by mercy rule going back to May 5. “They’re all tall, fast, good with the ball, strong. From top to bottom, that team is very, very solid, so it’s really hard to find a weak point. We knew we had a tough task coming in.”
Considering Ovid-Elsie’s talent and firepower, the Tigers did an exemplary job limiting chances. Senior keeper Brylee Friedman was in the team’s live stats with 12 saves, but Gorton said she might have been undersold. Not many of the 12 were high-stress saves as Shelby’s defense forced the Marauders into long shots.
However, Ovid-Elsie was extremely strong in possession and rarely allowed the Tigers to connect on more than a couple of passes before retaking the ball, making it very difficult to create scoring chances.
“We were playing for a one-goal game, probably, and with our speed up top with Kylie (Brown) and Annie (Stark), we were hoping that we could keep it even,” Gorton said. “Maybe a ball squirts the right way, and we can use our speed to close it.”
Shelby worked its way to a corner kick just a couple of minutes in, but when the corner was off target, that enabled Ovid-Elsie to seize the ball, which quickly turned into a run the other way. Marauder sophomore Madalynn Bushard scored on the play, assisted by Ava Kremer.
Friedman made a nice save of a shot off another Ovid-Elsie corner 11 minutes later, but the Marauders added a second goal before halftime from Jaedyn Palus to go up 2-0.
Gorton said the Tigers were likely hurt by the adjustment period to playing on a turf field. Shelby rarely plays on turf in West Michigan Conference play and didn’t play on turf at the district tournament either, while Ovid-Elsie’s home field is turf.
“Your touch is just a little bit different,” Gorton said. “It took us a little bit to acclimate to it, which it usually does when we end up on turf.”
In the second half, Shelby did much better, keeping possession a little more often, creating a chance here or there and keeping the Marauders away from the goal. The Tigers couldn’t get on the board, though, and a great pass to Ovid-Elsie’s McKenzie Keck set up a clinching goal with 4:23 to play.
Although Shelby was turned back in the regionals, the season marked another step forward for the program. The Tigers were more consistently competitive with the top teams in the WMC, and outlasted all but one of their conference brethren in the postseason - Fremont, which advanced to the regional finals, and which Shelby tied back in April.
It also, according to Gorton, was Shelby’s fifth trip to regionals in program history - 60% of them in the last three years.
“We’re starting to knock on the door,” Gorton said. “We’re starting to figure out the ways to maintain our competitiveness year to year, so hopefully we can get to work in the offseason and be ready to give them more of a game next year.”
Shelby won’t lose many seniors from this team, but they include three major contributors, one at every level of the lineup: keeper Friedman, defender Ariana Garza and forward Brown.
“It’s always bittersweet at the end of every season to have to say goodbye to those seniors,” Gorton said. “I told them on senior night and I continue to tell them that the impact they had goes beyond the season. They set the bar a little bit higher for future Tigers, which is exactly what I ask of them. Push our program, push our underclassmen, push them to do the things that you’re doing, and they were just great examples of that.”
