Bloomfield Hills -- Birmingham United rallied from two goals down to beat South Lyon 8-6 June 7 at Lahser High School to win their second straight Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 1 Championship.

  Senior Maddie Palmer quickly opened the scoring for Birmingham with 24:35 left in the first half on an assist from junior Brooke MacGregor.

  South Lyon then scored the next three goals, two by junior Kelsey Kaminsky and one by senior Valerie Pesonen to take a 3-1 advantage.

> COMPLETE BOX SCORE

   Birmingham patiently took back the lead at 4-3 at halftime on goals by seniors Lauren Acker, Quinn Golinske, and Allison Brown.

   Junior Nancy Miner made it 5-3 with a goal at the 23:34 mark of the second half. South Lyon closed the game back to one on Pesonen's second goal of the game.

  Birmingham extended their lead to 7-4 on goals by junior Sharon Shebib and Acker. Pesonen netted her third goal of the day for South Lyon at the 10:33 to make it 7-5.  Junior Rachel Miller added a goal for Birmingham at 8:54 to extend the lead to 8-5. South Lyon sophomore Ashley Glenn closed the scoring with 7:12 left.

“We kept our scoring spread out a little bit today and that was nice to see. Brooke MacGregor came in there and put a goal in for us and Sharon Shebib, who is not normally one that will take the ball to the goal, put one away for us,” Birmingham Head Coach Jen Dunbar said. “I think we moved the ball around well and kind of distributed well.”

   Emmy Scheidt made eight saves for the win in goal.

   Birmingham finished their season at 17-5-1. South Lyon finished 22-1-2.

   South Lyon reached the final for the first time in their history and entered the game undefeated.

   "It's good for them to come this far, especially with the seniors, since I have eight seniors, but they fought hard," South Lyon Head Coach Deanna Radcliffe said. "They’re not used to playing top competition, there's only so much you can do at practice to get ready for that. So, hopefully next year we can get some more competitive games with teams. Competing against Birmingham, the top-ranked team in the state will help her team gain some of that experience."