Marian gets the early breaks, goals in 7-1 win over Kettering to open season
WATERFORD – Marian started extremely fast Thursday night and cruised to a 7-1 victory over Waterford Kettering in the season opener for both sides.
The Mustangs got on the board less than two minutes into the game when Emerson Walton’s shot hit the post, caromed out front, hit a defender in the shins, and deflected back into the open net to give them a 1-0 lead on their first shot.
Six minutes later, Marian made it 2-0 on another deflection with Giulianna Agrusso getting credit for the goal.
For the first 20 minutes of the game, all the bounces went Marian’s way, and when the Captains got a bit rattled, the Mustangs took full advantage to stretch their lead out even more and make sure that the Captains would not be able to come back. Marian kept the pressure on Kettering and did everything it could to create its own breaks, and it paid off. Bella Musachio and Emma Wyciskalla also scored for the Mustangs, who expanded their lead to 4-0 just 17 minutes into the game.
“We have prided ourselves on starting quickly in games, and you can see that with three goals in the first (nine) minutes of the game,” Marian head coach Danny Price said. “You need a little bit of luck sometimes. Some of the things that eluded us last season during the run were a little bit of lady luck. We got it tonight, but the pressure we put them under the first five, 10 minutes was incredible. So that is something we have been working on is going at teams and not letting up and having that fire in our belly.”

After that, the Captains finally started to settle down and find their way into the game. Kettering was much better in the final 60 minutes and started creating offensive chances of its own, particularly in the later part of the first half. The Kettering pressure would pay off with a goal late in the first half when freshman Savannah Sartorius headed in a ball from a corner kick to get the Captains on the board. That made it 5-1 at the time, which was the halftime score.
“I think the girls figured it out. It took us a little bit to kind of mesh and see how everyone was moving and what our style of play was going to look like. But after the first 20 minutes, we started to figure it out a little bit more,” first-year Kettering head coach Justice Tillotson said.
In the second half, Marian again dominated possession, but the Captains were much better defensively than they had been early in the game, though the Mustangs still added a couple more goals.
“The effort level and pressing style, it never dropped, and that’s what we’re most proud of as a coaching staff is making sure that at this program they have to work hard. They know that, and they did that in the second half, and that’s what I’m proud of,” Price said. “It was a really good team performance,” he added.
Photos of Bloomfield Hills Marian vs. Waterford Kettering in girls soccer action
Being the first game for both teams and the coaches, each learned a bit about their teams, which have only been together for about a week with practice officially starting just last week.
“I messed around with one or two different formations, kinda wanted to see what the younger girls could do,” Tillotson said. "I wanted to get a lot of girls playing time, especially those younger ones to see where I can put them and what things can look like moving forward."
Marian will be back in action next week when the Mustangs play another non-conference game against Detroit Country Day.
Waterford Kettering, meanwhile, will have some time to regroup. The Captains are off for nearly two weeks before playing Auburn Hills Avondale after they return from spring break at the beginning of April.