St. Mary's takes home the C-D championship trophy for the second straight season after winning 2-0 over Divine Child. (Photo Credit: Dave Pemberton)

by Evan Petzold - PONTIAC Michigan - Orchard Lake St. Mary's won the Catholic League C-D Soccer title last season and returned in 2015 with a 2-1 defeat of Dearborn Divine Child to win the championship for the second straight season.

Leading the way for the Eaglets (14-2-1) was striker Michael Beckett. The senior looked like he had the first goal of the game early on a free kick. The shot, however, was called off due to an indirect kick call from the referee.

“The first free kick I had, I put it in near post, but the ref called an indirect quick so I’m like, ‘There’s no way I’m not shooting this,’ ” Beckett said. “I knew where the keeper was going to go because he knew I was going to go right over the wall so instead I put it on the opposite side of the wall this time and he moved in front of the wall and had no time to get back to it. I knew right away I was going to shoot it."

The Michigan State University commit, who has 32 goals this season, successfully found the net with six and a half minutes remaining in the game with a 40-yard laser to make it a 2-0 lead for Orchard Lake.

The first goal for the Eaglets came off the head of Luke Stoneback with less than a minute into the second half. Freshman Ryan Gray crossed the ball inside the six-yard box and the junior found an opening.

As expected, St. Mary’s junior goalie Hamza Ali Annamyradov was dominant behind a solid defense. Ali has given up just 15 goals over 17 games and has recorded ten shutouts.

St. Mary's and Divine Child (11-6-1) will begin districts next week.

“We’re extremely excited for the state playoffs,” Divine Child head coach Dean Kowalski said. “We’re going against some tough opponents. We start out against Farmington. They’re the host of the district and it will be a difficult game for us. They’re talented and got some very good players. If we’re able to make it through the district and battle through states, games like this are going to give us the miles that we need, the experience to make a good run, which I think we can.”

The Eaglets have a very young team - just four seniors on the team of 17 - heading into the state playoffs.

“It just means we’ve got consistency now,” Joe Ruffolo, the St. Mary's coach, said. “We’re getting soccer players that want to come play for St. Mary’s. There’s a lot of good schools out there. In eight years, we’ve been able to compete and it’s good finishing like this. But we want to build on it. We’re focused on states now.”