Houghton forward/midfielder Cheyenne Laplander looks to make a move during a game this spring. (Provided photo)

HOUGHTON — She wasn’t even going to play soccer this season. She was coming off of major surgery, and was ready to walk away from the sport she had dedicated her life to.

Then Cheyenne Laplander’s teammates stepped in and convinced her to play. The rest, as they say, is history.

Laplander became the first Houghton Gremlins soccer player to earn, All-District First Team, All-Region First Team, and All-State honorable mention after a senior season that saw her score a team-high 16 goals and add to that six assists to help the Gremlins go 4-8-1, and even win a Division 3 District 33 quarterfinal game against Grayling, 4-2, before falling to Boyne City in the semifinals, 2-1.

“Being from a small town, it’s just not expected to be able to go that far, and have that high of people notice you at all,” Lapander said. “So, it’s a really cool feeling.”

With soccer being a relatively new sport at Houghton, Laplander knows she has been a part of starting the growth process of the sport locally.

“Soccer is really not big here,” she said. “We just, two years ago, started to be a part of Houghton High School, and actually be a Houghton High School girls soccer team. So, yeah, it’s definitely still growing here compared to how big it is downstate.”

Coming off a lost season due to an ankle injury that caused her to need reconstructive surgery, Laplander figured she was not going to tempt fate yet again by trying one more season of soccer.

“I actually wasn’t going to play this season at all,” she said. “I had ankle reconstruction last year, my junior year. So, I didn’t play soccer my junior year.

“Having a whole bunch of my teammates that I haven’t played with in a long time, that was probably the biggest reason why I played, just because they were so convincing, and so supportive. Just being on the field with them, it just felt so good to be back again. I’m really just happy that they were so supportive of me. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t even have come back this season.”

She admitted that after the first two games of the season, a 4-1 loss to Kingsford on April 14, and a 7-0 loss to Marquette two days later, things were not looking good.

“I’m trying to think of our first game that we played. Well, the first couple games that we played, we did not do very well,” she said. “We played Marquette and we lost by seven goals. So, at first, it was just kind of like, ‘Oh.’ But then, later on, the team started finding a lot of connections on the field. I think a lot of that came through practice. We practice really hard. We conditioned really hard, and I built my ankle up a lot.

“So, once I scored the first goal, I just, I felt so good, and I kind of just felt like I was back to being myself, and not in my head about being scared that I was going to get injured again.”

Houghton racked up an 8-0 win over Iron Mountain in their third game, and from there, things got a bit easier. They defeated Grayling 4-0 on April 30, and then topped Iron Mountain, 3-1, on May 7, before earning a draw against Sault Ste. Marie in their final test before the district tournament began.

Throughout the season, Laplander was trying not to focus on how well her personal performance was going.

“I think the game kind of stayed the same,” she said. “I’d say we moved different positions a lot. So, sometimes I would be up on forward, sometimes I would be back on mid. It just really depended if it was more of an offensive or defensive game. But my teammates, we made really good passes. It wasn’t just like me getting the ball. It was a lot of people getting the ball. It was a lot of assists coming from a lot of different people. So, everybody was definitely involved in a lot of the plays.”

As her ankle felt stronger, Laplander did less attempting to beat one more defender, and instead made longer kicks, and she found success though that.

“I scored a lot was a lot of long balls,” she said. “A lot of the defense did play a higher-up defensive line. So, I would have a lot of midfielders that would see that, and they would play a really nice through ball. It was just about beating the defense, making some moves around them, and finding that corner that the goalie wouldn’t be able to get. I’d probably say running up to the ball was my favorite. But also, having like a new ankle, I started taking longer shots and once I realized that I could kick again, I started taking a lot of longer shots as well.”

When the postseason awards started piling in, Laplander said she was surprised.

“I thought maybe for the district, for those teams, but I really wasn’t expecting to go further than that,” she said. “When I was a sophomore, I made district team, before my ankle injury, and that was a really cool feeling. So, I was like, if I can make district team again, I would really be happy about that.

“I definitely was not expecting to go as far, especially with the injury that I had, and the mindset that I had going into the season. That definitely changed, from the beginning to the end, and I’m really happy that I ended up playing.”

Earning All-State accolades meant the world to her.

“It was an amazing moment,” Laplander said. “I found out by my coach texting me, actually, and it was just such a good feeling to end my soccer. It was a great feeling, one of the best feelings that I felt throughout my soccer career.”

Laplander, who moved to the Copper Country from Alaska, spent a few years in Calumet before moving to Houghton, is very excited for the future of local soccer, especially for young girls, given that the Houghton Football Club has added select girls soccer.

“I remember being on the team that wasn’t a part of the high school, or having to join the boys team to be able to even play soccer at all for school,” she said. “Now that that’s an option, I’m really excited. I have a younger sister who’s looking to play, and I have a lot of younger people that I know are looking to play as well. I’m just so happy that there’s more opportunities for them to be able to do so.”

For now, Laplander is hanging up her cleats and focusing on college. She plans to attend Michigan Tech in the fall and study pre-pharmacy. She is still deciding if she wants to try her hand at intramural soccer while going to school. Whether she does or not, she is considering getting into coaching down the road.

If this is the end of career, she is at peace with it.

Houghton forward/midfielder Cheyenne Laplander dribbles the ball around a defender during a game this spring. (Provided photo)