Ben Murphy
Sports Scene
The Bullock Creek soccer team played with fire twice in the district tournament last week. They got away with it in a 3-2 semifinal win over Clare on October 18, but got burned in a 3-2 loss to Tawas Area on October 21 in the championship game.
“Any loss is tough; I thought we played good enough to win the game, we just couldn’t catch a bounce,” sixth-year coach Bob Linton said. “We had some good chances, just couldn’t get anything to go in there. It was our second shootout of the week. Twice in the same week was probably asking a lot.”
The Lancers ended the year with a 19-2-2 overall record and a 12-1-1 record in the Tri-Valley West, winning their first conference title since 2007.
“We had a great season,” Linton said. “It ended sooner than we would have liked, but that doesn’t change the fact that we had a great season. The kids worked really hard, we put a lot of time in and a lot of commitment. They deserve all the credit for the season that we had. I was just along for the ride, and it was fun. They were a good bunch of kids.”
Linton had 11 seniors at his disposal this season. To him, this made winning the conference, keyed by a pair of wins over Freeland, all the more satisfying.
“It was awesome, these kids have worked so hard,” Linton said, “[The seniors] have been with me since they were freshmen. The first two years, we were a young team and went through a couple rough seasons and had quite a few losses. Last year, the kids started playing well together. Just having the core of your team be seniors is a good thing.
“We lost 1-0 to Freeland last year,” Linton added. “I give the guys a lot of credit, they wanted revenge there.”
Linton wasn’t surprised to see the Lancers have the strong year that they did, as he saw glimpses of what was to come at the end of last year. We’ve got some big egos on our team, and they really came together and played as a team. We didn’t have any superstars on this team, we’ve just got some really good players. We went a couple deep in the bench and didn’t lose anything out on the field.”
“The core group, about 12 of them, they have been focused since last year,” he said. “They’ve worked hard in the off-season conditioning and encouraged their teammates to be there, too, and that makes a difference having that many players that are committed to winning.”