With nine freshman playing, the Spring Lake soccer finished its season with a 3-0 loss to Bloomfield Hills Marian in the division two girls soccer state championship game on Friday.
"Unbelievable, crazy, crazy ride," Lakers head coach Becky May said. "I just threw a bunch of kids out there, like little kids. They were in middle school last year."
"A ton of heart," May continued, "and came farther than anybody thought we would."
The Mustangs took the title for the fourth consecutive season.
The Lakers made the deepest run in school history by just getting to the state championship game and might have been an unlikely journey considering the team's youth.
"I think it is just the fresh people, we had a new look on the whole season," junior Meah Bajt said. "We had a break last year and I think we were all ready to get back on the field and with our nine freshman we knew we had to seize the opportunity because we knew we're going to have more time than this. It is not like this is our last game, we'll be back."
Marian scored the game's first goal just 4:18 into the game thanks to freshman Elle Erwin who also scored in the second half for a 3-0 lead for the Mustangs.
A big moment in the game occurred just 2:22 into the second half when Marian's Olivia DeConinck scored but the goal was initially waved off because of an apparent offside, but after the officials talked, it was allowed for a 2-0 Mustangs lead.
"That was just devastating for us," May said. The refs did a good job overall, but in a game like this as soon as that goal went down, that was just very difficult to overcome at that point."
Still, Spring Lake finishes with 15 wins and nine freshman return as does Bajt who scored 31 goals this season.
