FRUITPORT – The Fruitport soccer team had a double motivation on Wednesday night – to keep its perfect record alive, and do it against longtime archrival Spring Lake in a key O-K Blue Conference game.
Despite being a few players short, and losing the guy who scored their first two goals to an injury, the Trojans hung tough and came away with a 4-2 victory, which improved their overall record to 5-0 and their conference mark to 2-0.
It was the first time the Trojans beat Spring Lake since 2016.
Fruitport got the win by scoring two early goals, playing tough defense against an aggressive Spring Lake counter-attack, and answering with key second-half goals when the Lakers threatened to rally.
The Trojans were outshot by an amazing 16-4 margin, but still won by scoring on all four of their shots.
“We were down some guys tonight, and this win speaks to everyone’s grittiness, toughness, and work ethic,” said Fruitport Coach Dan Hazekamp. “It was another phenomenal effort tonight.”
The scoring started off early in the contest, when Fruitport junior Bode Anspach found the net just over two minutes into the game, on the Trojans’ first shot on goal.
Two minutes later, with 35:49 on the clock, Anspach poked home another goal to make the score 2-0.
Anspach was visibly favoring his right shoulder after the second goal. He did not leave the field instantly, but was taken out later in the first half and did not return.
“We checked him out, it looked like he might be okay, but it still didn’t look quite right, so we wanted to be safe,” Hazekamp said.
Following the injury, the Trojans switched to a defensive style. Fruitport goaltender Justin Laus had two big saves with 24 and 21 minutes on the clock, respectively, keeping the Lakers off the scoreboard.
The Trojans went the rest of the first half without any more shots on net.
“We were already short down the middle, and once Bode went out we had to rely on some guys playing heavy minutes, and playing some guys in positions they aren’t usually in,” Hazekamp said.
Four minutes into the second half, Spring Lake had a scoring chance miss just high, and another shot went wide a minute later.
With 32:15 left, Fruitport’s Brady Brown made a huge kick save after the ball had gotten behind Laus in the box, preventing a Spring Lake goal.
Thirty seconds later, however, the Lakers finally broke through when Porter Saunders put in a header to make the score 2-1.
After about 20 minutes of defensive struggle, Ryan Laus cleared the ball down the middle, and Fruitport’s Sean Gieske managed to outrun two Laker defenders before sniping a beautiful goal into the left corner of the net to make it 3-1 with 10:10 left.
“With Sean up top, he can get you one at any time,” Hazekamp said about Gieske. “He made some nice plays for us tonight and was a big reason we came out on top.”
Just over a minute later, another ball nearly snuck past Ryan Laus, but Fruitport’s Jaxon Deneen was able to come up with big clear to erase another prime scoring chance for Spring Lake. Then with 6:30 on the clock, the Lakers’ Jack Mulder hit the goal post with a shot.
Spring Lake again made it a game less than a minute later when Isaac Rudd kicked home a rebound to make it 3-2.
The Trojan iced the win with 3:31 left when Gieske managed to get free once again and fed a pass to Jackson Rebone, who buried the ball for the final goal.
“We pretty much played counter-soccer for a half,” Hazekamp said. “Spring Lake played really well, and this win shows how strong our fight as a team is.”
Ryan Laus, Zach Schaefer, and Gieske each had an assist for Fruitport. Justin Laus had 14 saves on 16 shots on goal.
Pattyn Kole had an assist for Spring Lake, which fell to 2-2-2 on the season.