The West Michigan Aviation Academy’s soccer team entered each game this spring with the same game plan.
“Our girls’ mindset in every game was that we wanted to be a team that is tough to play against,” Aviation coach Andrew Lewis said. “We want to be tough and physical. Obviously, we don’t want to play being dirty. But we wanted to be tough to play against.”
That mindset has served the Aviators well. The Aviators are 14-5 entering state-tournament play, and their 7-0 mark in the Alliance League gave the squad its first conference championship in their six-year history. The Aviators were so dominant in league play that they outscored their opponents 41-3.
The Aviators only had five players who returned with experience. The team has three seniors and three juniors, with the remainder of its roster consisting of sophomores and freshmen.
“It has been a little bit of a surprise,” Lewis said. “But we have a lot of girls who are playing travel and played a lot in the offseason. We knew we had a good amount of talent and offseason work that we could get there. I think the thing that surprised us the most was how united we are as a team. I think that’s probably the biggest surprise.”
The Aviators defeated Grand River Prep 4-0 in last week’s Division 3 state-tournament opener, enabling the team to advance to Wednesday’s district semifinal game. West Michigan will take on host Catholic Central, which beat Belding 9-0 in last week’s quarterfinals.
Seniors Maira VanBeveren and Sierra Greer and junior Jocelyn Jarchow have anchored the team’s defense. Other key defensive contributors are Makenna VanderKam, Luczi Fleming, Kat Baker and Maddie Shaner.
“The most important factor in each of our wins was controlling the midfield, and we were really led by an amazing group in the middle,” Lewis said. “Senior Carmen Vyn and sophomores Emily Krampitz, Rebekah DeBoer and Izzy Saffell were huge contributors for winning 50/50s and finding quick passes to our skilled forwards.”
Junior Grace Hewitt leads the offense with 26 goals, while freshman Khloe Koelling has 21 and sophomore Emily Krampitz nine. Junior Lauren Swain has nine assists. Sophomores Savannah Brown and Savannah Norman and a trio of freshmen in Adi Dyksterhouse, Kacie Platz and Meredith Jarchow have helped spark the offense, too.
“One piece that has really helped the young team this year is their offseason program,” Lewis said. “We offer something literally every day but Sunday in the winter. Our girls hang out all winter and have grown so close. This unity and offseason work has allowed the program to grow in such a short period of time.”
The Aviators are getting the job done in the classroom, too. The team has an accumulative grade point average of 4.189.
“We are a really young team and a young program,” Lewis said. “Six years ago, we started a team and went 1-14. Now we are conference champions, have sent players to play in college and had All-State honorees. We aren’t done growing yet though. I could see a couple of our current girls playing in college, and we hope to start competing more at the statewide level.”
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