Bloomfield Hills Marian is still sour about its 1-0 loss to Spring Lake in the Division 2 girls soccer state championship two years ago.
So much so that the No. 4 Mustangs (20-2) had one of their busiest offseasons ever. They held player-led workouts, competed indoors at Oakland Yard in Waterford and traveled to West Michigan to scrimmage Byron Center and Hudsonville Unity Christian, two state title winners from last season.
Considering how dominant they have looked in the postseason, it’s safe to say the work has paid off. They’ve posted three shutouts and scored at least six goals in three of their four district and regional matches.
That includes a 6-0 win over No. 10 Waterford Kettering (19-4-3) in the regional final on Thursday, June 4, sending them to a June 10 state semifinal against sixth-ranked New Boston Huron (18-3-0), last year’s state runner-up.
“We’re resilient and so much more experienced than two years ago,” third-year Marian coach Danny Price said. “They’ve shown grit, determination. We had a great preseason, setting some standards for the team, and they’ve just fought for each other since.”
It helps that Marian has 13 players back from its state finals run two years ago, including five seniors eager to deliver the program’s 10th state title and first since winning four straight from 2017-21, not counting the 2020 season that was canceled because of the pandemic.
Some are hungrier than others.
Senior Giulianna Agrusso watched her older sister, Isa, lose 2-1 to Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central in the 2022 state championship. That team was loaded with talent, including current Michigan forward Elle Ervin. But the heart and soul of the run was Isa, who won a Girls Academy national championship with Rochester-based Nationals Soccer in 2021 and earned an invitation to the Mexican U-17 Youth National Team camp before playing her senior season at Marian.
Isa’s speed and finesse made her a threat to score from anywhere on the pitch, especially alongside Ervin. Those traits helped her land at Michigan State before transferring to Iowa State, where she graduated this past school year.
“She gives me good advice all the time, especially now that she’s here, cheering me on,” Giulianna said. “The best advice she’s given me is that any game could be my last, so go out there and play the way you know you can play and have fun.”
Giulianna and the Mustangs have certainly been having fun lately.
After scoring a key goal in a 2-0 regional semifinal win over DeWitt, Giulianna followed it up against Kettering. She beat defender Kortney Getting down the near sideline, squared up to the net and tucked a shot inside the left post for a 2-0 lead in the 18th minute.
While Isa relied on speed and footwork, Giulianna prefers to power her way to the net.
“She is very aggressive,” Price said. “Sometimes unpredictable. She just loves to run at people and that’s hard as a defender when you’ve got somebody like her coming at you. She’s a bulldog, coming right at you.”
Leah Nalichowski opened the scoring 74 seconds into the match. Her cross into the penalty box caught enough English and somehow bent into the net.
Clair Dauer cleaned up a corner kick 22 seconds before halftime.
Emma Wyciskalla scored twice early in the second half.
Violet Kretschmer capped the win with a point-blank goal in the 75th minute.
“Not only do they play with so much grit and determination, but they also play a really good brand of soccer,” Price said. “You could see that tonight, and you saw that Tuesday versus Dewitt. I think we’re really difficult to break down sometimes. It’s a good group.”
Playing in the final week of the season for the second time in three years, Marian is about to find out just how good that group is.
Getting to DeMartin Soccer Stadium at MSU against Spring Lake wasn’t about luck in Price’s first season. But it was an eye-opening experience, especially for the underclassmen who are now juniors and seniors.
“Now they know what to expect,” Price said. “Obviously, the state semifinal is going to be a difficult game, so we’re not looking to the state finals just yet. We’re focused on Wednesday, but we want to get back to East Lansing because we didn’t like that feeling when we left there two years ago. They’re really motivated to get back there.”
The Mustangs are motivated to reach the June 13 championship game. They also don’t want to waste the work they’ve put in since losing to rival Farmington Hills Mercy in last year’s district final.
That loss served as a wake-up call. It showed them they couldn’t waste any time preparing for this spring.
“We’ve learned that no matter the talent, nothing is given,” Giulianna said. “You need to work hard every game. Since March, we’ve been out here working, doing team bonding. Those past losses have really pushed us since the start of our offseason, and we’ve all been together pushing. We haven’t made that loss [to Mercy] our mindset, but we’ve taken the opportunity to realize that nothing is given. Everything is earned, and any game could be your last.”
It’s a lesson the Agrusso family has learned twice this decade, with Isa and Ervin falling just short against Forest Hills Central and Price’s young Mustangs losing to Spring Lake.
Now Marian hopes to end that streak in what would be the program’s 15th state championship game appearance since 2002.
“It’s really important that we take our talent with the team that we have, with these five seniors and we go all the way,” Giulianna said. “Not just for us, but for the teams that have come before us, like my sister’s team, that wanted to win it all as much as we want to.”
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life and the Detroit Free Press. Follow him on his new X.com account at @folsomwrites.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bloomfield Hills Marian soccer blanks Kettering, returns to semifinal
Reporting by Brandon Folsom, Hometownlife.com / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Brandon Folsom, Hometownlife.com | USA TODAY Network
