MUSKEGON – For all of those Muskegon Risers fans who have come to love high-scoring forward Miguel Flores over the years, there’s no reason to panic.

He says he’s not leaving the Risers – at least not this season.

Flores has always displayed an intense loyalty to his hometown of Muskegon and the Risers organization, for very good reasons.

Lots of people in the area soccer community always believed in his talent and gave him opportunities when nobody from the larger soccer world seemed interested.

He was a soccer star at Muskegon High School but was not recruited by any four-year colleges.

He became a standout at Muskegon Community College, but most of the bigger schools still snubbed him when he was done there.

So he joined the Risers, who were just starting their winter indoor semipro team back in 2016 and were happy to offer him a roster spot.

Flores flourished in the indoor game, using his immense speed and ball-handling skills to become a big scorer for the Risers. That was never on display more than it was last Saturday night, when he scored four times to lead the Risers to a 13-2 drubbing of the Chicago Mustangs in a key league game.

In many ways Flores has become the unofficial “Mr. Riser.” He’s known for his amazing offensive abilities and his obvious passion for the town and the team, and the fans clearly return the affection.

“It’s just about playing for the city and seeing everybody in the stands,” said Flores, 24. “That’s what drives me. They get me going.”

But now a new opportunity has appeared on the horizon for Flores.

He currently leads the Major Arena Soccer League 2 with 16 goals in eight games this season. He’s been particularly hot in the last two games, when he’s scored a combined seven goals for the Risers.

Teams in the elite Major Arena Soccer League – a pro league one step above the Risers – have taken note of his performance, and one recently reached out to Risers owner Matt Schmitt, asking about Flores’ potential availability.

Schmitt broke that news to Flores at practice on Wednesday, and suddenly the guy who never got many opportunities outside of Muskegon has some decisions to make.

“I love to prove people wrong – I’ve done it my whole life,” Flores told MuskegonSports.com. “Getting to the pro side would definitely be beneficial to me and my family. But I have no plan on leaving this season. I’m going to finish my time with the Risers and see what happens from there. The opportunity (to move up to the pros) is there, but my main goal is to get us into the playoffs and finish what we’ve started here.

“As of right now, I only have one team.”

‘My options were very slim’

Flores said he started playing soccer around the age of his four, thanks to his dad, Pedro Flores, who grew up in Mexico and played the sport as a youth.

“My mom (Veronica Lopez) and dad made sure we were all okay,” Flores said. “They worked their asses off to get me the things I needed to keep playing.”

Flores became a standout soccer player at Muskegon High School, and also gained notoriety as a very talented placekicker for the Big Reds football team.

He might have been good enough to play soccer at a four-year college right out of high school, but there were no callers.

“My options were very slim,” Flores said. “I had no college offers coming out of school. I hadn’t been the best kid when I was younger. I was kind of a knucklehead back in the day. I didn’t make much of an effort in my classes and I didn’t do nearly as well as I could have.”

Flores ended up on the Muskegon Community College men’s team and earned All-Conference, All-District and All-Region honors.

“I didn’t know much about MCC, but it really made a big difference for me at an important time in my life,” he said. “It was nice to play again with a lot of close friends I had played travel ball with. It was a great time and a lot of fun those two years.”

Flores did not have a four-year college to transfer to when his MCC eligibility ended, so he turned to the Risers and their new semipro indoor team, which played a much faster version of the sport than he had ever experienced.

The coach of that new team was Ben Ritsema, who was also his coach at MCC, so making the transition seemed natural.

The speedy forward took to arena soccer like a fish in water. He scored in the very first Risers indoor victory in history – on Jan. 15, 2017 – when they beat Youngstown 4-0 as members of the Premier Indoor Soccer League.

He spent the spring and summer of 2017 playing for the Risers indoor and outdoor teams, and got to know Stu Collins, a soccer veteran from Ireland who also played for Muskegon.

As it turned out, Collins was also the assistant men’s soccer coach at nearby Davenport University, and he helped Flores find his way into that program.

“I really thought I might be done with college soccer after two years at MCC, but Stu talked to the coach (at Davenport), got me a meeting with him, and the rest is history,” Flores said.

The flip side of playing for Davenport was an NCAA rule that prevents college players from competing for semipro teams if their coaches also play for those teams. Collins continued to play for the Risers after the college season was over, so Flores had to step away.

“I was just starting to get my feet wet and I was excited to be out there (with the Risers), but I had to sacrifice that to play college soccer,” Flores said. “I had to drop one good thing to gain another. It was kind of sad at first, but I knew my time would come.”

Getting through the shutdown

Flores completed his soccer eligibility at Davenport in 2019 and was excited about returning to the Risers indoor team in the spring of 2020, but the season never happened due to the sudden onset of COVID.

He was fired up again in the spring of 2021, but again there was disappointment when the Risers announced they would only play three home exhibition games – none of them league games– due to continued concerns over the pandemic.

Despite the abbreviated schedule, and no championships to compete for, Flores showed up with full enthusiasm, leading the Risers with eight goals.

He was the hero in the final game, scoring three goals in the first half in a come-from-behind 10-9 win over the Colorado Inferno.

Flores was pumped after the victory, because it gave the fans something to hold on to as they waited for better days.

“It goes back to the fans,” Flores told a reporter after that game. “They come and watch these games and they want us to perform. We just want to give it our all, and that’s all it was today. We wanted to leave on a good note and make the fans happy.”

Even though valuable time was passing by in his career while he played very little high-level soccer, Flores said he never lost faith in the Risers’ ability to bounce back and play a full league schedule again.

“Matt Schmitt built this club from the ground up, from the year it started to now, and it has a strong foundation,” Flores said. “I knew he would find a way to make it bounce back. It means so much to him, and we see how much it has come to mean to the community.”

Things finally returned to normal for the Risers this winter, when they resumed their role as a full participant in the MASL 2, playing a full 12-game regular season schedule.

Flores and a number of other players who had been with the Risers for several years returned for the new season. They got off to a shaky 2-4 start against the tough competition, but they’ve bounced back in their last two games, beating Cincinnati 7-6 in overtime and Chicago 13-2.

The Risers are currently in second place in the Great Lakes Conference with four regular-season games remaining. The top two teams in the conference make the MASL 2 playoffs, so the goal is to win enough down the stretch to stay in the postseason picture.

The first step will be facing the first place and undefeated Cleveland Crunch on the road on Saturday night.

“We’re back in full swing, we feel good, and the team looks good,” Flores said. “It shows in practice. After being away for so long, everyone is giving it their best go.”

Picking up the scoring pace, honoring an old friend

Individually, Flores also got off to a relatively slow start this season.

He scored one goal in the season opener, a 9-7 come-from-behind victory over Cincinatti. He did not score in the second game, a 7-6 overtime loss in Chicago. He scored twice in the Risers’ home-opener, an 8-5 loss to first-place Cleveland. He scored twice in an 11-10 home win over Chicago, then scored twice in each of the next two games, both ugly road losses to Cleveland and Chicago.

“It took a few games,” Flores said about responding to the renewed demands of traveling and playing at a high level every week. “I had a long break from playing competitive soccer on a consistent basis. I had to knock the rust off, but it didn’t take too long.”

Flores really started getting hot in the last two weeks. He started by scoring a three-goal hat trick, including the game-winner in overtime, in a thrilling 7-6 win over Cincinnati on Jan. 29.

Last Saturday he was even better, scoring four goals in a 13-2 blowout win over Chicago, which provided some revenge for the Risers’ 13-3 loss to the Mustangs on the road two weeks earlier.

While fans might have assumed that his four goals against Chicago were just an extension of his rapidly improving season, there was a lot more to it for Flores.

Exactly 11 years earlier to the day, Flores and his close friend Kaaine Dowdell, both in their early teens at the time, played together in an indoor soccer travel game in Grand Rapids.

Hours later, young Flores received a stunning phone call and learned that Dowdell had gone home and tragically taken his own life.

The memory of that horrific night was very much on Flores’ mind when he took the field last Saturday, and he was determined to have a special performance.

He did so in a big way, scoring goals in the first, second, third and fourth quarters to help propel the Risers.

“That last game was a special one,” said Flores, who adopted the jersey number 28 for the rest of his career, because Dowdell wore it. “It had been exactly 11 years since my good buddy had passed away, and I think he was watching.

“I just know how close we were. He played on my travel team for several years, and as soon as we got into junior high together, we got really close. He was my best friend.

“Earlier that day we had a travel team game in Grand Rapids. He didn’t see like anything was out of the ordinary. Then to get a call like that later that night, at that age, was very difficult.

“I just found a way to cope with it. I’m not really the type to show emotion, so I try to represent what I’m feeling out on the field. I made a social media post a couple months ago, talking about how that game was coming up. I was so excited about it. I knew it would be a great chance for me to play for him.”

A career crossroad

Flores already knew that the next few months would bring him to a crossroad in his life, and there would be important choices to make.

By August he will have his Bachelor degree in business administration/sports management from Davenport, and expected to be looking for his first full-time career job. He has been thinking about focusing his job search in the Grand Rapids area, where his girlfriend also lives.

As far as future soccer plans, Flores really didn’t have any. His hope was to live close enough to Muskegon to continue to play for the Risers, and all of the friends and fans who come out to watch him. But now the interest from the unnamed professional MASL team has put all plans on hold.

Schmitt, who played collegiate soccer at the University of Michigan before coming home to establish the Risers, thinks Flores’ skills are a great match for indoor soccer, and he’s not surprised that professional teams are finally starting to notice him.

“He excels in the indoor game,” Schmitt said. “That’s really where he’s getting looks from professional teams. I see a bright future for him, His game is custom-fit for the arena game. He has a non-stop motor, he’s really quick and physical, and he’s a guy who just wants to go.”

As much as Schmitt would hate to see Flores leave the Risers, he is also happy to help young players in his organization move up and chase their dreams.

“You want your guys to have the best chance possible,” he said. “We get players from MASL teams, and we’re starting to realize that we also have players who can go up. We have local players who are extremely talented, and when teams reach out for them, we’re not going to keep them from pursuing those opportunities.”

Flores admits he was surprised to learn than an MASL team is interested in his services, and said he would definitely like to pursue a pro career.

But he says he’s also determined to finish the season with the Risers and see how far the team can go.

“I wasn’t expecting anything, and it’s kind of cool to get the recognition,” he said. “I’m just going to continue to work and keep to my game plan, and hopefully a pro contract will be there. I will not be turning anything down. If the next level calls, I’ll be there. But we’re in season and I have no plan to leave this year.”

Even if he does eventually leave for a pro team, Flores wants his friends and fans to remember that his heart has always been in Muskegon, and always will be.

“It’s never goodbye,” he said. “I will always find my way back.”