TRAVERSE CITY — Getting a game under their belt changed everything for Traverse City Central.
The team was shut out 3-0 Friday by Saginaw Heritage in the opening game of the Trojan Kickoff Invitational at the Trojan Athletic Complex in Traverse City. They responded with a dominating 5-0 win in their second outing against Muskegon Mona Shores.
Central did a good job controlling play and tempo against a team playing its second game in a row, although games were shortened to 30-minute halves with running clock. Mona Shores had only a 10-minute break in between contests.
“I watched them against Heritage, and was like, holy cow,” TC Central head coach Gavin Richmond said. “They were a pack mentality, and I wanted us to get the ball down and play and not get involved in that kind of game. That was their second game back-to-back, which was hard. But we’ve got proper footballers on the team, kids who know what they’re doing, they’re comfortable on the ball. Their technique is good. Their brains are good. I see some bright things for us.”
Saginaw Heritage’s Cole Smith scored with 3:25 remaining to break a scoreless tie with Mona Shores, propelling the Hawks to a 1-0 victory in a physical contest. Heritage had three shots on goal and the Sailors two.
Heritage knocked off Central 3-0 in the day’s first game, with Smith scoring twice in that game as well.
The young Trojans graduated 11 players last year, and only one of five goals scored against Mona Shores came from a senior.
“We graduated a lot of great seniors this year,” senior captain Ethan Rademacher said. “We have a lot of young guys. So first game went out, we had those jitters. First time playing together in a while. Second game, we just started playing really well together. We started actually playing how we’ve been playing in practice. Great chemistry, great talking, and just getting that first game jitters out of the way was a really big game changer.”
Richmond said the Trojans missed on five golden opportunities in the Heritage game.
Then they came back and capitalized on similar chances the second time around.
“We could have quite easily scored 10 goals today,” Richmond said. “But that’s part of our growth with these kids.”
Sophomore Jackson Consolino put Central up 1-0 on a darting run with 26:02 remaining, with sophomore Zander Folgmann picking up the assist.
The Trojans took a 2-0 advantage on an own goal off a TCC direct kick, with sophomore Aiden Clark the nearest offensive player and drawing credit for the score.
Senior Rory Gallagher made it 3-0 with 18:10 to go off a Christian Gray assist, junior Will Richmond scored off a Clark assist to give the Trojans a four-goal lead with 10:10 remaining and junior Kyler Yaroch scored Central’s fifth goal with 2:42 left as Folgmann picked up his second assist of the match.
“We’ve got young kids and they’re so hungry to do well and get better,” Richmond said. “It’s been a great week. We’ve been doing two-a-days all week. The attitude has been phenomenal. The chemistry is fantastic.”
Mona’s goalkeeper deflected a Clark shot to the upper right corner with 7:35 remaining in what would be a scoreless opening half.
“We were a lot more deliberate and a lot more focused in on what we were trying to do,” Rademacher said. “We have a lot of our new strikers are new to varsity, so it takes a little getting used to for them. The second game seemed like they’ve been there before, and they were just connecting right on every single time.”
Senior Caleb Byland made three saves against Heritage, and he split time with junior Brendan Schlosser in the second game, with Byland stopping three shots and Schlosser two.
Central’s next game was moved from Wednesday to Thursday, hosting Alpena at 6:45 p.m. for both teams’ Big North Conference opener.