The Pioneer High School boys soccer team won its season opener against Dearborn, 1-0, avenging a season-ending penalty shootout loss from a year ago.

The win, however, came with a steep price. Junior forward Cal Kirchen suffered a potentially season-ending injury after a hard foul by a Dearborn defender near the end of the game.

With Pioneer ahead and less than two minutes remaining in the game, Pioneer’s Tristan Jacob was tackled late after passing the ball ahead to Kirchen. Though Jacob laid on the field, injured on the play, the referee allowed play to continue on advantage after acknowledging the foul as a goal-scoring opportunity was formulating for Pioneer.

That opportunity was halted when Kirchen was tackled from behind soon after receiving the pass. Both Kirchen and Jacob were removed from the field via ambulance and taken to nearby Oakwood Hospital. Both Dearborn players received red cards and were suspended at minimum for their next contest.

After undergoing tests, Jacob was released later in the night from Oakwood, but Kirchen was kept overnight having suffered a broken clavicle.

Zack Pagani scored the game-winning goal in the 38th minute, with an assist from Adam Carn-Saferstein.

Revenge in the pool

The Huron boys water polo team sat atop the Michigan High School Water Polo Association state rankings for the entire 2010 season. Unfortunately for the River Rats, they ran into a hot goalie at the wrong time at the state semifinals.

Huronlost 8-7 to eventual state champion Rockford, largely due to the spectacular play of Rockford goalie Patrick Fase, who went on to win tournament MVP honors.

Huron avenged its loss over the weekend at the Rockford Invitational, defeating the Rams 8-7 in the final.

The River Rats had a commanding 6-0 lead in the third quarter and nearly let it slip away, but held on for the victory in the end against the two-time defending state champs.

Aleksandar Petrovic led Huron in scoring in the final with three goals.

Top tennis teams converge at Huron

Huron hosted its annual boys tennis invitational on Saturday and took runner-up honors against some of the best teams in the state. Defending Division 2 state champion Midland Dow took first place with 27 points, just one ahead of the River Rats.

Winning flight championships for Huron were sophomore Jack Peterson (No. 1 singles), seniors Sam Brodkey and Andy Wu (No. 2 doubles), sophomores Aaron Brodkey and Colin Willams (No. 3 doubles and seniors Ben Brenner and Costa Demetral (No. 4 doubles).

Saline came in third place with 15 points and Pioneer -- runner-up at last year’s Division 1 state championships -- finished fifth with 10.5 points.

Hornets still growing

Saline always has a large cross country team. This an accepted notion in the area. Having a 100-member girls team would be double of some of the other largest teams in the state. For Saline, it would be a down year.

Despite budget cuts and an increase in pay-to-play, coach Mike Smith’s small army again broke its own record with 130 girls out for the team this year. Smith called the continued growth a "unique and fortunate situation."

As for keeping track of his runners' names, Smith has admitted before that it's not the easiest thing in the world. Even with mandatory nametags at the beginning of the season, Smith said it's tough to keep them all straight.

“That’s a lot of ponytails,” Smith joked.

Statewide participation among nation’s best

The state of Michigan ranked seventh in the nation in high school sports participation, according to a study released by the National Federation of State High School Associations last week. It is the third straight year Michigan has been seventh in the nation.

The study -- which includes participation figures from sports in which the MHSAA does not conduct post-season tournaments, such as water polo and field hockey -- said Michigan had 314,354 participants in 2010-2011. There were 181,207 boys who played high school sports last year - and 133,147 girls, both increases from a year ago and both sixth compared to national numbers.

Nationally the average percentage of high school students who participate in school sports is 55.5 percent, compared to 62.1 percent in Michigan. According to the study, 7,667,955 students participated in school sports in the 2010-2011 seasons.

-- Bob Gross contributed to this report.

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