The crowd was in shock when number seven, Nate Hicklan, of Troy attempted a bicycle kick in the first four minutes of play which sailed three feet over the cross bar.
“I knew he was capable of these types of shots because last year he scored an unreal goal against us,” senior co-captain Charlie Kelly said.
Hicklan, a highly recruited D-1 college player is one of the many soccer studs Seaholm faced this year as they moved up a league from OAA white to OAA red. The change has also put Seaholm from Division II to Division I and given them a schedule that some would call unreasonable. Seaholm plays or has played teams like Lake Orion, Clarkston, Rochester, and Troy High, all of which are top 10 in the state.
On a cold 50 degree fall day with the wind blowing, Tuesday, September 29 Seaholm played number two in the state Troy High. Seaholm, a heavy underdog, kept with Troy, tied 1-1 at half time. Remarkable goaltending by James Ruby and an early goal by Matt Martins kept the game close.
But in the second half, Troy dominated play not letting the ball out of the Seaholm defensive zone for the first four minutes.
A Hicklan goal gave the Colts a 2-1 lead, and they never looked back, scoring seven more goals in 30 minutes. Final score Troy 9, Seaholm 1.
When judging a sports team, the first thing always looked at is the team’s record, in Seaholm’s case 1-10-3, but to accurately judge the men’s soccer team, one must look much deeper.
Ask an ordinary critic of the team and they will tell you that it has been a rough first half of the season. Head Coach David Reed-Nordwall sees it differently. Losing has been rough, but within the losses the team has matured more than any team he has seen in his life a the Seaholm coach.
“This team has grown mentally more in the first three weeks of the season than any other team I have ever coached,” Reed-Nordwall said. “This is the first soccer team that I have seen who can handle the failure and still see the positives to improve on their game. No other team of mine was tough enough to do this.”
The captains of the team seem to still have an upbeat mind-set about the season.
“I would rather lose to the top teams in the state, and learn from them, then beat teams we know we are better than,” Kelly said.
September 17 Seaholm played the power house team of Lake Orion and were mercied, 8-0.
“We have a number of players that are being scouted by collegiate teams, we made a decision to keep our starters in the entire game so they were able to get good looks by the college scouts, it was nothing personal against the Seaholm program,” said Lake Orion Athletic Director Bill Reiss.
When playing such a great team, one player said it’s hard to be too upset about a loss.
“I couldn’t help but laugh at how good some of these kids were, they were pulling off unreal moves. The Lake Orion players were very classy about winning,” Kelly said.
