Brighton Athletics Impressed in 2017-18 school year

Brighton has won two team state championships in Hockey and Project Unify Basketball, along with the wrestling and girls golf team being state runner ups. On top of the team state championships, Sean Mercier and Kyle Verhelle won a bass fishing state championship.
The hockey teams road to the state championship is one that will be remembered for years to come. The Ice Dogs started their playoff push against a good but not good enough Orchard Lake St. Marys team in a 3-1 victory followed by an easy 7-0 win over Lowell/Caledonia. The semi finals are where things got interesting for the dogs as they took on arguably the greatest Catholic Central team of all time that was undefeated against teams from the State of Michigan and outscored their previous two opponents in the playoffs 16-0. But that meant nothing to the Ice Dogs, who took down the boys in blue 2-1 to advance to the state title. The Ice Dogs then beat Saginaw Heritage in an easy 5-2 victory to repeat as Division 1 Ice Hockey State Champions.
“It felt unreal to upset that CC team and bring back a state title to Brighton,” Senior Assistant Captain and BGSU commit Adam Conquest said.
Project Unified brought home their state championship slightly before the Hockey team winning their state title against the Area 22 Blue Jays 18-16. The team is coached by Brighton High School’s very own Jody Renicker along with John Krayer and Lisa Johnson.
“It was very cool to see the excitement and joy on the kid’s faces winning the state title,” senior Shayne Miciek said
One of the most notable sporting events to take place this year was the Boys Basketball team’s second game against Novi. The Dogs lost their first contest against Novi 47-63 so there wasn’t a whole lot of hope going into game two, but the dogs came to play against Novi in the second game and won 57-56 on a buzzer beater shot by junior Will Jontz. Novi ended up finishing their year in the final 4 of the state playoffs and has multiple players playing at the next level. So that win is definitely one the boys on varsity this year will remember for years to come.
“ The win against Novi was truly amazing,” senior Matt Buschman said.
Varsity Wrestling also had a phenomenal year on the mat. The dogs had 13 regional qualifiers, 11 state qualifiers, and 7 state placers all of which are Brighton High School records. The dogs ended up losing in the state title match to an extremely talented Catholic Central team.
The girls golf team also had lots of success this season winning the KLAA West Division and eventually winning the whole Conference over Plymouth, Livonia, and Northville. The girls ended up being state runner ups this year at the Meadows at Grand Valley State University. They came in second behind a very talented Traverse City West squad with a final score of Brighton 648 and Traverse City West 626.

In all Brighton Athletics had another phenomenal year in sports, and they look to keep it going this spring!