CALVIN SPORTS REPORT FOR OCTOBER 31, 2007
MEN’S SOCCER
Calvin 4, Adrian 0
(witten by Bruce VanBaren '09)
Senior Jared Litty (Hudsonville/ Hudsonville) scored two goals and sophomore
Michael Holwerda (Grand Rapids/ Grand Rapids Christian) picked up a goal and an
assist as Calvin downed Adrian 4-0 to clinch the MIAA Championship.
The league title is Calvin’s first since 2004 and 18th overall. Calvin advances
to the NCAA tournament, the seventh time in school history.
After opening the year with a 1-3-1 record, Calvin (13-4-2 overall) has gone
12-1-1 including an 11-0-1 mark over its last 12.
“It’s exciting,” Hughes said. “These kids have worked extremely hard. This
year with our start we weren’t getting the results [we wanted]. The upper
classman on this team have really shown the way and I’m real proud of their
efforts and they deserve to represent the MIAA [in the NCAA tournament].”
Litty, one of those upperclassman, put in two goals in his final regular season
game at Zuidema field. Litty was a freshman on Calvin’s last MIAA championship
team in 2004.
“As a senior, it’s a dream come true,” he said. “This is our goal every year
and it’s been a couple years for me and hopefully we’re not done.”
Litty is part of Calvin’s league best offense that increased its season total
to 41 goals in league play with four goals against Adrian.
“We’ve got a lot of weapons up there,” Litty said. “With six or seven guys
with the ability to play the positions up top when everyone’s on it’s fun to
watch, fun to play in.”
One of those weapons is Holwerda who opened up the scoring in the 14th minute
with his team leading ninth goal of the season. Holwerda rebounded his own
shot and rocketed a left footed shot from the right corner of the box to put
Calvin up 1-0. As part of Calvin’s prolific offense, three other players sit
just behind him with eight goals this season: freshman Scott Hooker
(Hudsonville/ Unity Christian), senior Nick Capisciolto (Hudsonville/ Unity
Christian) and Litty.
All of those scoring leaders got involved this afternoon. After opening up the
scoring in the first half, Holwerda opened up the scoring in the second half
feeding sophomore Luke Holtrop (Hudsonville/ Unity Christian) in the 64th
minute. Holtrop, the stopper on Calvin’s defense, came up to rip the cross
into the back of the net for his fourth goal for the season.
Litty’s goals came in the 67th minute and then ten minutes later in the 77th
minute. On the first goal, Hooker fed a cross into the box that Litty tapped
into the net and on the second goal, Capisciolto assisted him by flipping goal
keeper Darrin Cline’s (Grandville/ Grandville) punt into the box, leading Litty
to a break away goal.
“It’s just a confidence thing in soccer,” Hughes said. “One person triggers and
after they’ve triggered the door is open [for our offense]. “
Since the previous meeting with Adrian, which Calvin won 6-1, the offense has
been electric with the Knights scoring over five goals in four of seven games
since then.
“I think we are confident,” Hughes said. “We have to be peaking at this point
and I think we are.”
Calvin certainly appeared confident in the second half outshooting the Bulldogs
19-2 and scoring three times.
“It was just a matter of time until the doors were going to open,” Hughes said.
“We just wanted to play relentless and put a lot of pressure all over the field
on their team. [We wanted to] force mistakes and then let our possession game
take over and pick and chose shots. We could have had several more shots but
we were taking our time and trying to find the back of the net.”
Despite wrapping up the MIAA title, Hughes doesn’t want to look past Saturday’s
conference finale at Tri-State.
“We’re going in hard. We need to go down and finish off the MIAA even though
the championship is wrapped up right now.”
Calvin plays at 2pm on Saturday and the game will be broadcast OTHER MIAA MENS SOCCER SCORES WEDNESDAY
ALBION 3, OLIVET 0
HOPE 5, ALMA 2
KALAMAZOO 0, TRI-STATE 0
MIAA MENS SOCCER STANDINGS THROUGH 10-31-07 PLAY
Calvin 12-1-1
Hope 9-3-1
Kalamazoo 9-3-1
Albion 7-5-1
Olivet 4-9-0
Adrian 3-9-1
Alma 3-9-1
Tri-State 2-9-2
Jeff Febus
Sports Information Director
Calvin College
(616) 526-6169 Office
(616) 526-8551 Fax
Received on Wed Oct 31 20:04:02 2007
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