Tecumseh wins opening round of districts against South Lyon East

Tecumseh’s varsity boys soccer team defeated Adrian last week and followed with a 4-1 victory over South Lyon East in the opening round of district action on Monday.The Indians beat South Lyon East 4-1 with Oscar Widen scoring two goals to lead the team. Jarrett Oldeck and Ollie Autry added one goal each to help the Indians win. Assists were recorded by Josh Nowak (3) and Widen.Tecumseh received an Honorable Mention in the final state rankings for the season. “We started a little slow tonight, but after about 10 minutes, we started getting into our game,” said Tecumseh coach Jerry Nowak. The scoring opened with Josh Nowak assisting Widen with a pass that allowed him to easily put the shot into the back of the net. Later in the half, the two combined again with Nowak threading his South Lyon defenders with a pass that Widen gathered up and sent to the net. Tecumseh closed the first half with a 2-0 advantage.“While we played hard in the first half, we were having trouble connecting on some passes that we normally are able to make,” said coach Nowak. “We were able to make up for that though with some determined team defense. At half, we also talked about getting our outside backs into the offense more as South Lyon East appeared to be giving us the widths so that they could try to keep Nowak and Widen from combining in the middle.”The Indians played with more intensity and did a better job of spreading the field to create some space in the second half, according to coach Nowak.Oscar Widen sent a pass to Oldeck and he drilled the ball into the back of the net for his seventh goal of the season and a 3-0 Tecumseh lead. South Lyon East got on the board a few minutes later to set the score at 3-1. Ollie Autry managed to get the ball just inside South Lyon East’s post for the match’s final score. Nowak’s assist on the play was his 28th for the season. He has 13 goals this season while Widen has 18 goals and four assists. “I was happy with how most of the second half went for us tonight but am a bit concerned with how we’ve started the last two matches,” said coach Nowak. “We get Adrian on Thursday and based on their excellent game they played with us last week, it could be a very interesting and exciting game.”The win was Tecumseh’s ninth straight victory. During the win streak, the Indians scored 40 goals and only gave up six. Tecumseh is now 13-5-0 overall.Tecumseh defeated Adrian 2-0 on the road October 9 with goals from Josh Nowak and Widen. Josh Nowak had an assist on Widen’s goal.Adrian won most of the 50/50 balls and cut off the passing lanes while getting into their attack quickly in the first half but both teams missed scoring opportunities.“We came out a little more focused and determined to match their intensity in the second half,” said coach Nowak. “Our back line started winning balls and were finding our mid-fielders so that we could be more in control of how we wanted to attack. The mids did a better job playing balls into our widths which made our attack a bit less predictable than it was in the first half.”Midway through the second half, Adrian committed a penalty in the box and gave Tecumseh a penalty kick opportunity. Josh Nowak shot from the left side of the goal and got the ball past the Maples’ keeper.A short time later Widen ripped a hard shot that dinged the very bottom of the crossbar and just crossed the line to give the Indians a 2-0 lead. “Widen was really struggling with his shot tonight but I felt we needed to stick with him,” said coach Nowak.“While I can’t really get too excited about how we played in the first half, our goal keeper, Bogie Trout, made a couple of very good saves.The Indians finished second in the Southeastern Conference White Division behind Chelsea.Tecumseh’s junior varsity team also beat Adrian 2-0 with Matt Nowak Rochford scoring on the Maples twice.The Indians travel to Dexter on Thursday to face Adrian in District semifinal action at 3 p.m. Results will be reported in next week's Herald.