MONTAGUE — Montague turned the tables on Shelby in Thursday's first-round district game, coming out aggressively and confidently. That early push proved to be the difference in a dramatic 3-2 victory that sent the Wildcats on to the semifinal game against Whitehall, set for Wednesday night at Oakridge.
Montague's Austin White scored the game-winning goal with 7:33 to go on an extremely well-placed shot to the corner, but the game was truly won early on, as the Wildcats, one week after being shut out by Shelby on the same field, played with abandon and energy that Tigers' coach Cristian Arellano said caught his team off guard.
"They were the ones really pressing us (when we played a week ago)," Montague coach Brandon Mahoney said. "For us, we were missing Ethan Balon in goal (for that game), and having him back tonight, he's a big body. Then being able to have Brendan Trevino out of the goal and being a regular sub on defense, it made a huge difference. Those two spots that they were in tonight were the spots that they help us the best."
Barely three minutes after kickoff, Isaiah King raced toward the goal, and despite good pressure from a Tiger opponent, launched a spectacular shot to the top opposite corner to open the scoring. Shelby evened the score a few moments later, but Montague continued to attack and make life difficult for Shelby's keeper, Oliver Gorton.
Montague entered the game focused on keeping its shots low to the ground, having seen Gorton excel at saving high ones in the teams' previous matchup, but in a twist, not only did King's goal go high, but so did Montague's second. With 13:24 to go in the first half, Zach Taylor launched a high ball that evaded Gorton's fingertips, clipped the bottom of the crossbar and deflected into the net for a go-ahead score.
Shelby's Ben Mitteer and Montague's Aryk Wood grapple for possession during Thursday's district opener at Montague. The Tigers lost, 3-2.
"When that first shot from Isaiah King went in, and it was high, but it was opposite corner, I was very impressed, because that's got to be a hard shot and onside the net to get past their keeper," Mahoney said. "Then obviously that great knuckleball from Zach Taylor, where it barred down and completely surprised him. It pretty much went behind him, and he didn't expect it."
Shelby made a halftime adjustment that resulted in a quick tying goal to open the second half, exploiting the Wildcats' five-defenseman lineup by finding the open space and attacking it. However, after that, Montague largely dominated play, holding the ball and keeping the pressure on the Shelby defense.
"It wasn't just the possession, but it was that we were winning the 50/50s," Mahoney said. "Ollie, their keeper, would get it. He would get a goal kick or go to clear it, and we would win the 50-50 and be immediately back on their half attacking. When you do that, there's still those chances that they could get a ball out there, and they could score, but I felt like we had the upper hand and we were going to get one. You could see that their defense was getting fatigued."
Mahoney said there was talk on the sidelines of who the Wildcats might select to take penalty kicks in the event of a shootout, but he remained confident the 'Cats would land a winner, and ultimately, White did. Shelby's efforts to gain an equalizer went unanswered.
Montague's upcoming semifinal against top seed Whitehall will be a rematch of an exciting game won 1-0 by the Wildcats in September. Unlike that contest, it will be on turf, and Mahoney noted that unlike some past years, that won't be a disadvantage to his team, citing a close game it played against North Muskegon this year.
"Watching us pass in the rain tonight, we definitely cut it up a little bit," Mahoney said. "If we can do that, which I know they can - we played North Muskegon basically 1-1, until we got that penalty, and we were pressuring them - I feel like we might have a little bit of an edge on turf. but it is going to be a dogfight. It's going to be a battle."
