By Mike Stechschulte
Junior – Oxford High School
For the second year in a row, the Oxford Wildcats Varsity Soccer team has won its first two playoff games by beating Lapeer East on Oct. 22, and Stoney Creek on Oct. 24.
Oxford began the playoffs with a bye in the first round, and went on to play Lapeer East in the second round, who defeated Lapeer West 2-1.
The game started off with the Wildcats controlling the play all the way. The majority of the attack was in the Lapeer East end of the field, and captain Jimmy Henry opened up the scoring for the Cats at 36:59 from Keane Kalso to put Oxford ahead early.
Just five minutes later, freshman Zach Wasylyna scored off an assist from Dave Kourtjian to make it 2-0 Oxford. The Wildcats held their two goal lead into the second half, when Dave Kourtjian added a goal for his second point of the night with an assist coming from senior Chris Schnur. Oxford sophomore goaltender Shane Rhondi was not forced to make a lot of saves, but when he had to, he looked up to the task, making a couple of diving saves in the second half to preserve the shutout and 3-0 win for Oxford.
In the third round, the Wildcats moved on to play the Stoney Creek Cougars, defeating them by a final score of 6-5 in a closely contended game. Early in the game, Dave Kourtjian scored two big goals for Oxford, and then junior Paul Ebenhoeh added his own. But Stoney Creek came back and tied the game up at 3-3 right at the end of regulation to send the game into a shootout.
In the shootout, the three captains, Jimmy Henry, Keane Kalso, and Eddie Summers scored huge goals for the Wildcats, while shots were missed by Josh Duval and Zach Wasylyna. Shane Rhondi stopped 3 of 5 shots to win the game for the Wildcats.
Oxford will continue its playoff run on Oct. 28 in Fenton at 7:00 P.M.
Mike Stechschulte is a Junior at Oxford High School and plans to major in the field of journalism.