Lakers Battle But Fall Short In Quarterfinals

It’s a tough pill to swallow—coming this far and falling short.

But despite a 4-3 loss to Lake Orion Wednesday night in the state quarterfinals on home ice, the St. Clair Shores Unified Lakers can walk away with their heads held high, knowing they left it all on the ice.

“I’m so proud of how these kids played tonight,” Lakers assistant coach Russ DiCristofaro said. “We just never, ever gave up. Never.”

And they never stopped battling either.

The Lakers took every blow the more experienced Dragons could deliver—including an opening period goal that put the squad down, 1-0, at the 11-minute mark—and even punched back.

Given the magnitude of the game and the youth of the Lakers, most young teams would’ve backed down. Not this group, however, DiCristofaro says.

“We’re a young team, sure, and we knew what kind of season we were in for because of that,” DiCristofaro said. “But with only a few seniors, we knew we had to bring these young kids along and that’s what we did. But I thought our team carried the play to them tonight at times, I really did.”

After the opening period, the squads went back and forth, trading goals throughout the rest of the contest. However, the lone tally in the opening period proved to be the difference.

“It was just a really tough game,” Shores senior said. “And it’s a great rivalry. We know that nobody really thought we’d make it this far, but we didn’t listen to any of that. We just battled and put all of our effort into it.”

The fact that the Lakers found themselves playing this deep into the postseason is remarkable in its own right.

A squad that looked a little green out of the gate this season and one that finished at 6-4 in the Macomb Area Conference Red, which was good enough for third place, seemed to come together at the perfect time.

“We just saw that we had something good here,” Soloway said. “We just sort of came together as a family after that and became one. Then, when we beat U of D (University of Detroit) we just said that anything is possible for us. We can do this.”

And they backed up this belief with results, moving through a very difficult postseason region (which included wins over Birmingham, Dearborn Crestwood and the ) and advancing to Wednesday night’s quarterfinal.

“This is disappointing,” Soloway said. “But we know we came out and gave it our all. We did that every night. I think we can be proud of that.”

Soloway is one of only a handful of seniors who will leave the team, while a nucleus of top-notch younger players returns to the ice in 2011-12.

“We’ve got a good group coming back and we should be 100 percent better for this experience next season,” the coach said. “Experience is key in this game. Whenever you get an experienced team, that makes a huge difference.”