Northville Girls Soccer Wins First-Ever KLAA Championship

Playing an away game in 80 degree heat, didn't stop Northville's girls soccer team from scoring its way to a Kensington Lakes Activities Association championship - its first ever.

"Hats off to Hartland," said Northville coach Eric Brucker. "They are a well-coached team that showed that they deserved to represent the Lakes conference."

Here's a recap of the game from Brucker:

In the first half, Northville Senior Jenni Borawski played a long lofted ball deep into the Hartland end of the field. Senior Mallory Weber brought the long pass down to her feet and laid the ball off to Sophomore Megan Buckingham. Buckingham cut inside the first defender and fired a bending shot from 19 yards out around the out stretched hands of the Hartland keeper.                          

In the second half, Weber checked back into the midfield to receive a pass directly from Northville's back line. Weber turned up field and played the ball forward to Junior Emily Bush. Weber followed her pass through the center of the field and was rewarded with a give-go return pass from Bush. Weber beat the lat defender with sheer speed and deposited the shot just inside the near post. Junior Kiki Hilmer was in net for the championship shutout.

"We put together another solid outing. The defense, led by Kiki Hilmer, limited the Eagles to only eight total shots, none of them on target in the second half," Brucker said. "Our midfield did a great job of transitioning out of our defense third and getting the ball to our target players. Our offense did a great job in taking advantage of the scoring opportunities that we created."

He added, "We leave the regular season undefeated but now that all goes away. Second season starts on Tuesday - win or go home. All the work in the regular season won't mean much if we don’t use what we learned to get through the toughest district in the state."

Northville is now headed to the district playoffs where they'll face off against Livonia Churchill on May 29. The girls' home game begins at 7 p.m.