BLOOMFIELD HILLS — Does Bloomfield Hills Marian have all the tools for another soccer state championship?
Well, they have a sledgehammer — and they haven’t hesitated to put it to use. The Mustangs (7-1-0 after Thursday’s match) are ranked fourth in the state, and have pounded most of their opponents this spring.
After every match, the first thing coach Danny Price does is call the girls together and present a player-of-the game reward. It’s not a certificate, a medal, or even a cupcake — it’s a long-handled, steel-headed, honest-to-goodness heavy mallet. The player receiving the award gets to keep it until the Mustangs’ next event.
Price chose Emma Wyciskalla following a 6-0 win April 21 at Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook. Wyciskalla scored the first goal of the match, and got the team rolling with her inspired play.
“She was good today,” Price said. “That first goal just showed her quality, really. She’s just a dangerous player in those wide areas. She had a great first touch on a difficult field. She had 21 goals as a freshman last year, and she’s come into the season as a sophomore scoring the same goals and providing the assists.
“Today I thought she was very good in one-v-one isolation moments with the defender on the outside,” Price added. “She did everything I asked her to do from wide areas.”
The bottom line is Price has had several choices each game day as the Mustangs continue to play well. For example, Marian’s dominant win over Cranbrook pitted the two teams together that played for the 2025 Catholic League championship. The Mustangs proved dominant on the Cranes’ home field, scoring four times in the first half and allowing the Cranes very few offensive opportunities.
“I can’t speak to other programs, honestly,” Price said. “We know what players graduated from other programs last year, but the great thing about this program is we keep re-loading with great payers that come in as freshmen. Our JV program is 16 players strong; they’re all freshmen, bar one, and they all play club soccer. We just continue to re-load after every year. We lose four or five seniors but we re-load with four or five good travel players.”
“It’s just really great to experience what we have. We usually do very well in the Catholic League, I’d say. I’m glad we finished it off today,” said junior captain Nia Bordogna. “Honestly, there’s no drop-off on our team. Yeah, we do have a smaller team compared to other high school teams like Cranbook and other schools that we play, but it’s a small group of girls that are really good together. There’s no drop-off if we make subs or if someone’s having an off-game.”
“This year’s squad has a lot of all-around talent,” added four-year team member and senior captain Lily Robinson. “In the past we’ve been strong in a couple aspects of the game — we’ve been strong defensively or strong in midfield — but this year, we really have all-around grit and talent and just the willingness to work hard, which is going to help us go really far I think.”
Winning is ingrained in the Marian program. Not only have the Mustangs captured the Catholic League crown five times in the past 10 years, but they have nine state titles, which ranks third best among all schools statewide.
The Mustangs have a 53-10-6 record since Price succeeded the retired Barry Brodsky following the 2022 season. However, it’s been five seasons since Marian has claimed the state championship, and the team thinks it’s time for another.
“We’ve set some goals and standards. We had a presentation that really outlined who we are as a program and who we want to be,” Price said. “We didn’t really discuss our goals, but we did say that we want to be in the state finals and we want to retain our Catholic League title — that’s the standards we have in this program. We don’t talk about it game-to-game; we just play game-to-game.”
So far, six of the team’s seven wins have come by six goals or more. Besides Cranbrook, Marian has defeated Warren Regina (a state finalist in 2025), Waterford Kettering, Dearborn, Fenton, Williamston and Mason. The only blemish has been a 1-0 defeat to Detroit Country Day.
“I think the most important thing is that they’re all collectively working together,” Price said. “We had a great pre-season. That’s 44 goals and we’ve conceded 2 in (our first) 7 games, it’s a good way to start the season. We’re doing some great things right now, we’re still taking it game-by-game, we’re still taking it day-by-day. I’m super-proud of them, and they’re continuing to go from strength to strength.”
Besides, many of the players feel they have something to prove after taking an early exit from the state tournament last year, at the hands of Farmington Hills Mercy in the district round.
“Last year was tough to deal with, and it definitely put things in perspective a lot, which is something I actually think we’re benefitting from this year,” Robinson said, “so just knowing everything can be taken away in a second, it just makes us work that much harder.”
“I think it hurt at the time, but I don’t think it sends a message of, 'Let’s go back with revenge on the mind,'” Price said. “Right now we’re super-hyper-focused on performance, and super-hyper-focused on delivering on that performance, and the results will take care of themselves.”
