Oxford thrives in penalties to beat Lake Orion for championship

PREP SOCCER

Oxford’s Tristan Warthun (30) clears the ball from Lake Orion’s Matthew Toffolo during Thursday’s D1 district final held at Davison High School. The Wildcats captured the title with a 2-1 win in penalty kicks. KEN SWART — FOR MEDIANEWS GROUP

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By Michael J Wallwork

For MediaNews Group

DAVISON >> The Oxford Wildcats were perfect in the shootout and slipped past the Lake Orion Dragons 2-1 (SO) in Thursday’s district final.

“Lake Orion was good tonight, very, very good, and they had a fantastic season. I knew we were going to get their best,” Oxford head coach Adam Bican said. “It’s good just to get out of here with a win.”

The Wildcats made all three of their kicks, and Wildcats goalie Nolan Mauser saved all three Lake Orion kicks to give Oxford the victory.

“Obviously, I was nervous going to pens, but I just stayed confident in my abilities and made some saves,” Mauser said. “I do a decent job of waiting, not letting them fool me or deceive me, and I just read their legs and trust my instincts.”

The game was an up-and-down affair with both teams playing very direct. Oxford broke on top with 14:53 to play in the first half when Ryan Pietsch laid off a ball at the top of the penalty area for Tristan Warthun, who fired a swerving shot through a crowd and just inside the right post for a 1-0 Oxford lead.

Lake Orion tied the game just before halftime when Deniz Redzep played a ball out of midfield that Billy Kappler headed in with 2:36 on the first half clock.

The momentum went back and forth in this one as neither team could maintain control for an extended period of time. The Wildcats ended up with a slight edge in shots, amassing 21 total attempts versus 18 shots for Lake Orion.

“Both teams played really hard. You saw both teams compete. They both had opportunities. It sucks that it had to end that way (penalty kicks), but someone has to advance,” Lake Orion head coach Jason Wise said.

Oxford’s effort was spearheaded by the play of Ryan Clark and Drew Cady, who were both all over the field for the Wildcats.

“While we’re out on the field, while we’re huddling, we talk about all the times we’ve ran bleachers. All the sweat, hard work, tears we’ve done,” Clark said. “It was a great game. It was fun to play them again because we played them in regular season, and we played them last year three times.”

Lake Orion was led by the play of Austin Negri and center backs Will Farmer and Matt Toffolo.

With the win, Oxford (14-1-5) claims its second straight district title and will move on to regionals next week where the Wildcats will face the winner of Friday night’s game between West Bloomfield and Walled Lake Central.

“We’ll probably go take a look at them,” Bican said. “We played West Bloomfield earlier. But it really does not matter what happened in the regular season. You can learn a couple things about people, but when it’s the postseason everybody is up. So we’re looking for another really strong challenge, and we are not looking past that game. I promise you.”

Lake Orion finishes the year 11-4-2 and won the Oakland Activities Association White Division.

“We had a good number of guys coming back, and there is a lot of experience. But I thought the spirit’s up from the guys. They really bought in, and they really gelled as a team. I thought that was what was really nice,” Wise said.

The Dragons will graduate 14 seniors as they move up to play in the OAA Red next year.

“It’s going to be like a whole new roster, or half a whole new roster next year, and a lot of those seniors do put in some solid minutes. So it’s going to be interesting in the Red.”