- All
Forest Hills Central dominates late, takes home Division 2 title
Howell – East Grand Rapids was looking for revenge Saturday when it challenged Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central in the boys Division 2 lacrosse state finals at Parker Middle School in Howell.
The two teams played twice during the regular season, with Forest Hills Central winning both matchups.
Ultimately, Forest Hills Central (19-2) prevailed again with a final score of 10-6, and became the Division 2 champion.
Forest Hills Central scored first on a goal from Tanner Hallock on an assist from Drew Bailey with 9:46 left in the first quarter.
In the second quarter Hallock scored his second goal on another assist from Bailey.
“It was great to get the boys going,” Hallock said. “It is pretty cool putting the first one in, but you know it’s the start of something. I think that picked up our teammates, and I think we finished the game off because of a good start like that.”
East Grand Rapids (15-5) brought the score within 2-1 38 seconds later on a goal from Ben Keller on an assist by Hub Hejna.
“We needed to calm down, we were too frantic,” Bailey said. “We knew that if we were going to lose this game it would be because we were beating ourselves, so we needed to slow the pace down, do our roles and finish shots.”
Unfortunately for East Grand Rapids, Forest Hills Central dominated the final quarter.
Hejna scored his third goal for East Grand Rapids on its lone fourth quarter shot on net, but it was too little, too late.
Forest Hills Central managed to get six shots on goal resulting in five goals.
“It just feels amazing right now,” Forest Hills Central head coach Jake Seiler said. “I’m fairly new to the program, so I haven’t really experienced the total disappointment that these kids have being back in it, and they won it in (2012), and they were in it in (2013), and they just came darn so close so many times. This group of seniors, they’ve tasted it but they haven’t won until today, so I am just excited we were able to give those seniors that championship that they’ve been looking for since their freshman year.”
