Troy blanks Adams, setting up district showdown
BY JAKE LOURIM
STUDENT CORRESPONDENT
TROY — The Troy boys soccer team won a tight game over Rochester Adams Tuesday at home. It’s reward? Another game against Rochester Adams on Monday at home.
Senior Jason Leslie drilled home a cross from senior Filip Buniewicz with 5:20 to go on Tuesday, helping Troy avenge a previous loss to Adams with a 1-0 victory over the Highlanders in a non-league match.
The OAA Red Division champion Colts drew Adams for a first-round Division 1 district game against the Highlanders, which will be at 7 p.m. Monday.
Though Troy had controlled play for much of the game, a stellar performance from the Rochester Adams freshman goalie Spencer Ward kept the Colts out of the net for nearly 75 minutes.
Pressuring the ball to try for a game-winner, Buniewicz finally got his chance on the right flank. He fit the ball between defenders to Leslie in the box, and the senior forward fired it home for what proved to be the game’s only goal.
The Colts allowed Adams only two shots on goal the entire game, but they had many more themselves.
“We made sure we had one guy stepping up and one guy dropping off and always had that covering behind,” Troy coach Zawislak said.
Troy now has a split with Adams after losing 2-0 Sept. 13, coming into the most important game on Monday.
“We don’t want to get overconfident with it because we know that they were playing without a couple of their better players, but at the same time it gives us a little mental edge knowing that we can play with them,” Zawislak said. “At the same time, we weren’t exactly playing our lineup. When we actually went to our lineup, we scored within two minutes.”
“I think that definitely will give us an edge,” senior defender David Eicher added of the win. “We’re going to come out, and we’re going to be the aggressor because we got the better of them. At the same time, they’re not going to like losing, so they’re going to come out and be mad.”
Even with the mental edge that Troy may possess, Zawislak is very aware of the challenge his team faces.
“Their team speed is very fast,” Zawislak said. “So we have to make sure that we get solid pressure on the ball, but cover in behind the ball. It needs to be a good team effort collectively on the defensive side to make sure we keep them at bay.”
The game against the Highlanders, given Honorable Mention in the state rankings, will likely be the toughest game. If Troy gets past Adams, it’ll play the winner of Waterford Mott and West Bloomfield on Wednesday at home, and the final is Friday. The likely finalist on the other half of the bracket is Birmingham Brother Rice, who ousted the then-18-1-2 Colts in 2009 in penalty kicks on the same turf.
In all the games, the Colts will have their tenacious defense as an asset. They will also have a tremendous goalkeeper, whether it be junior Matt Smolinski or sophomore Craig Duggan.
Smolinski is the starter, but he suffered an ankle injury Oct. 3 at Novi. Zawislak said he will likely play, which will be big for Troy.
“He catches everything, and he doesn’t give up many loose balls in the back, and that’s the biggest thing,” Zawislak said.
Either way, the game against Adams Monday will likely come down to one goal, as many of Troy’s games have. The Colts are definitely battle-tested in that situation —they’ve been in five 1-0 games this year and won them all.
“We’ve been through it before, (the players) have been in the situation where they’ve been put under pressure, where they’ve been in tight games, and they just have that mental edge about them that if we’re just patient and persistent, it’ll come eventually,” Zawislak said.
Eicher emphasized the importance of staying in the game and not getting frustrated when down a goal.
“In the playoffs, you can’t do that,” he said, “you’ve got to get right back up and you need to go right back at the other team. We also learned that you can’t relax at any point during the game.”
Among everyone, expectations are high. Zawislak has advanced to at least the state quarterfinals in all three of his years at the helm of the girls’ soccer team, and Troy advanced to the regional final last year.
“We’ve really been focusing on a lot of defending in the last week and a half, since the Novi game, and if we can get our defending organized, it’ll be hard to break us down,” Zawislak said.
“Who knows? We could get knocked out in the first game because we’re playing a very good team, or we could make a good long run into the tournament.”
Eicher looks back on Troy’s run to the regional final last year, in which the Colts didn’t give up a goal for four games.
“That shows us that we can go really far,” Eicher said. “If you don’t give up goals, you can’t lose.”
Category: High School, Prep Wraps, Rochester Adams, Troy
