“It has been a journey.” That was Livingston United head coach Doug Fowler’s assessment of what it took to finally get his team on the ice Wednesday night in Howell and judging by the results on the ice it was a fruitful journey as the Knights defeated defending state champions Grosse Pointe South 5-2.
According to Fowler, it has taken about three years to get the team on the ice. “It started out with a dream,” Fowler went on. “We saw that there was a need in Livingston County, there are a lot of really good club teams, but we realized that there wasn’t just one school that was going to be able to feed a team, so it was going to take a co-op and we were able to do that. We are very blessed that we were able to pull together Brighton, Hartland and Howell into one unified team”
With the team assembled, the girls took care of business on the ice taking an early 2-0 lead over the visiting Blue Devils as Chloe Valente picked up the first two goals of her hat trick at the 7:55 and the 6:38 marks in the first. She was assisted on the first goal by Ava Eckerman and Rachel Vaughn and by Eckerman again on the second goal.
Grosse Pointe South cut that lead to one when Molly Ryszewski found the back of the net unassisted with 2:12 left in the first period but that was as close as the Blue Devils would get the remainder of the night.
The second period saw the Knights post goals by Lauryn Rygiel assisted by Megan Smith and Erika Beauchamp assisted by Ava Eckerman extending Livingston United’s lead to 4-1 headed into the final period.
Valente completed her hat trick with 10:00 left in the gameas she lit the lamp unassisted and Grosse Pointe South added a late goal byBridget Backer assisted by Madison Ryszewski and Kelsie Francis to round out the scoring on the night.
Lauren Fowler went the distance in net for Livingston United giving up just the two goals on the way to the Knight’s victory.
Afterwards Fowler talked about what this first victory means to his fledgling program. “It is a dream come true, I was so nervous coming into the game to be honest with you. Grosse Pointe South is an extremely amazing opponent and we knew we would have our hands full, but the girls proved themselves worthy, that is for sure.”The win puts Livingston United at 1-0 on the young season with a game against Bloomfield/Birmingam coming up on Saturday night while the loss drops Grosse Pointe South to 0-1 with Sacred Heart/Marian up next on Saturday.