FRUITPORT – Ryder Merkins has been using his head pretty effectively lately, and it’s made a big difference for the undefeated and top-ranked Fruitport soccer team.

On Saturday Merkins scored on a header to give the Trojans a tight 1-0 win over North Muskegon. On Wednesday he did it again, at a tense moment in a much bigger game.

Fruitport was clinging to a 1-0 lead in the second half of an O-K Silver conference showdown against second-place NorthPointe Christian. The visiting Mustangs had stolen the momentum and were threatening to tie the game, but Merkins stepped in and prevented that from happening.

He took a long, high centering pass from teammate Grade Anspach and headed it past the diving NorthPointe goalkeeper with just under 15 minutes left, giving the Trojans some breathing room.

That opened the floodgates for Fruitport, which added two more goals down the stretch and posted a 4-0 victory at Ken Erny Field

“I was coming up the right side, I saw Grade in the corner with the ball, and I always expect Grade to get a ball to me,” said Merkins, a junior midfielder. “I just slid in toward the goal and I saw the ball coming across, straight toward me. I was watching the goalie, he shifted to the right, so I just put the ball the other way.”

The Trojans, who this week became the No. 1 ranked Division 2 team in the state, improved to 13-0 on the season. They also completed their first tour against O-K Silver conference opponents with a perfect 7-0 record.

That means the Trojans will now enter the O-K Silver conference tournament as the No. 1 seed. Two straight victories in the tournament would clinch at least a share of the outright championship.

That would be a big deal for Fruitport, which has had some pretty good soccer teams in recent seasons, but never brought home a first-place trophy from their former conference, the O-K Blue.

“We set some goals, and one of them involves playing well in the conference and chasing that conference title,” said Fruitport Coach Dan Hazekamp, whose team will host Hopkins next Tuesday in the first conference tournament game. “It’s a very important thing for us.

“We’re in a good position right now. We haven’t won anything yet, but this gives us the top spot for the tournament and some good momentum going into next week. But a lot of things can happen. There are a lot of good teams in our conference, so we’re taking it one game at a time.”

On top of all that, the shutout victory was the eighth in a row for Fruitport. The streak is beginning to seriously mirror what the Trojans did last season, when they went 13 games – from midseason all the way to the state quarterfinals – without giving up a goal.

Goalie Logan Werschem collected his 10^th shutout of the season by making four saves.

“It is what it is,” Hazekamp said about the latest shutout streak. “We don’t talk about the shutouts a lot. Our goal is to play sound as a group and play great defense. The biggest thing I worry about is how we will respond when we do give up a goal. But we have a resilient and tough-minded group, so I don’t think we will let it shake us.

“(The streak) is nice, but it’s not everything.”

The Trojans seemed ready to take control of Wednesday’s game in the first half, when they outshot the Mustangs 6-2. But the NorthPointe goalie made some very good saves and kept the game close.

Fruitport’s Isaac VanderMolen scored the only goal of the first half when he found the net from close range with 11:32 remaining on the clock.

The Mustangs came out flying in the second half and got a few good shots off on Werschem, making everyone on the Fruitport side nervous.

Merkins finally addressed that situation with his header goal, which came with 14:36 left in the game.

Fruitport’s Jules Smith added a goal about two minutes later, with an assist from Nathaniel Cribley-Cotto, then Satchel Norwood closed out the scoring with 6:44 left, with an assist from Hudson Hazekamp.

“It was a big momentum swing, kind of the jolt we needed,” Coach Hazekamp said about Merkins’ big goal. “We knew they were going to come out hard at us in the second half and they generated a little bit of pressure. But the beauty of my guys, they never give up and they are capable of scoring a goal at any moment.”

The Trojans will be busy for the next few days, visiting Montague on Thursday and Spring Lake on Saturday before opening the conference tournament on Tuesday.