CEDAR SPRINGS – ‘All good things must come to an end’ is a saying as old as time, and on Thursday that rang true for the Spring Lake girls soccer team.
With a 3-0 loss to Forest Hills Central in the Division 2 regional final at Cedar Springs, the Lakers’ season came to an end with an outstanding record of 17-3-1.
“It’s unimaginable,” said senior Meah Bajt, the team’s leading scorer, about the loss ending her soccer career. “This is my family. This is the best part of my life right here. They’ll be missed and I couldn’t imagine my life without them. It’s been the best four years of my life, probably.”
While some coaches may have been overwhelmed by the loss, Spring Lake’s Becky May realized her team, which included 11 sophomores, may have been outnumbered by Forest Hills Central’s 10 seniors.
“You only get experience from experience,” May said. “I can encourage a sophomore to work really hard, but I can’t turn her into a senior before a regional game. It really showed today in their strength and play. We struggled with decisions that freshmen and sophomores struggle with.”
[1]The fact that her roster was so young, with only four seniors, gives May hope that Thursday’s game may be an experience for her program to grow from.
“The future looks bright for the red and white,” May said. “We won’t be able to replace Meah or any of the seniors. But Meah had this weird drive to score goals that you don’t teach. We’ll do the best we can to have a solid 10 on the field next year, but losing these seniors is hard.”
FH’s Central’s overwhelming age and experience advantage was obvious from the jump on Thursday night, when the Rangers outshot the Lakers 4-1 in the first half and led 1-0 at halftime.
The lone first half goal came with 3:01 remaining when Frankie Sutton found the back of the net.
In the second half, Dailey Tucker scored on a rebound with 37 minutes remaining to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead.
[2]The last goal of the game came with 4:08 remaining when Haley Ward found the mark to make the score 3-0.
Spring Lake was outshot 9-1 on the night.
“We couldn’t connect,” said Bajt about the Laker offense struggling to get untracked. “They’re experienced and had 10 seniors on the team. We’re experienced but not that experienced. They were the better team tonight and we left it all out there.”