TC United's late rally comes up short in regional finals
Jun. 2—MIDLAND — Traverse City United's players emerged one by one from the locker room to a round of applause.
Not the round they wanted, but one the boys lacrosse team hopes is a building block as the program took yet another major step forward this season.
Midland, which started its lacrosse program a year before Traverse City Central began its in 2006, won its second straight lacrosse regional championship Wednesday, 15-8, at Midland Community Stadium.
"Hats off to these dudes," said TC United varsity head coach Liberty Provost, who started the program that merged with Traverse City West to form TC United in 2018. "They are very well-coached, and they played well."
United won a program-record 16 games this season, finishing 16-3, ranked No. 7 in Division 1 and making its farthest-ever playoff push. No. 6-ranked Midland (16-3) moves on to face No. 3 Detroit Catholic Central, which obliterated South Lyon 18-5 Wednesday.
Midland, a co-op of Midland High and Midland Dow, received a strong performance from goaltender Tate Clerc, who made 11 saves in the win. Midland head coach Joe Stadelmaier handed out two game balls after the contest, one to Clerc and the other to face-off specialist Aidan Wardell, a state runner-up this winter in wrestling.
"This was a difficult win for us because we have never seen Traverse City," Stadelmaier said. "We didn't really play comparable teams. We watched them play Grand Blanc here a couple of days ago, and they are big — they're athletic. It was a very competitive game."
Midland led 8-3 at halftime, as Griffin Arends scored all three United goals on low shots.
The advantage surged to 13-3 on Kyle Riter's goal with 10:56 remaining.
United had a surge of its own, scoring the next five goals, including four over a span of only 1:27.
Matt Ochoa kicked it off with a goal to the left post with exactly nine minutes left. Conrad Dobreff skipped a shot past Clerc off an Ochoa feed, McMillan Quinn added another, and Arends rifled in his fourth of the day.
"I'm super proud of the guys for hanging in there and keeping the pressure on," Provost said. "Things finally started to go our way there at the end. The first half, things just didn't seem to bounce our way."
The goals by Dobreff, Quinn and Arends came in a span of only 20 seconds to pull United back within 13-7. Arends skipped another in with 6:19 left before Midland scored twice in the final 1:43 to ice the game.
"They're a good team," Stadelmaier said. "You can't relax even for a minute. I thought about calling a timeout, but I just wanted our guys to deal with it."
Traverse City goalie Keegan Opper made four games, and Ethan Gerber came on to make eight.
Midland forward Cal Stearns broke Midland's single-season scoring mark in the game, producing his 66th goal of the season.
"I thought our boys played well," Stadelmaier said. "It was competitive. And I think we just have few more talented players than they did at this time."
An adult Midland fan taunted an injured United player soon after the game, prompting Provost to yell, "Classy" at the home team's stands.
Both Stadelmaier and Provost are the only head coaches in their program's entire history.
United graduates a huge senior class of 24 out of its 31-player varsity roster. The United does boast a full JV roster that showed promise throughout the year, even competing against and seeing success against some varsity competition when many of the seniors were at prom.
"I'm happy to go one step further than we did last year," Provost said. "At the same time, this group of seniors isn't going to come around every year, so I was hoping to take it another step or two — but that didn't happen. We're going to miss this senior class. But I'm excited for next year, too."
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