With regional loss still fresh, 5 Hartland basketball players were back on soccer field

HARTLAND — Izzy DePestel and Brinley Neuer never got to properly mourn the end of their basketball season.

Less than 24 hours after Hartland lost to Belleville in a regional championship game, DePestel and Neuer were on the soccer practice field for the extended tryout given to basketball players whose winter season overlapped with the start of spring practice by three days.

News flash: DePestel made the team.

That, of course, was a given.

She’s in her fourth season of varsity soccer and will continue playing the sport at the University of Findlay.

Neuer, despite the enormous impact she made as a freshman during basketball season, had to prove herself before making a team that reached the state Division 1 championship game last season.

DePestel, Neuer and three other members of the soccer team hoped to still be representing Hartland on the basketball court this week instead of beginning their spring season, but it’s not such a bad thing to find a landing spot with a team that has legitimate state championship aspirations.

“It was the next day we were back out here,” DePestel said Wednesday night following a season-opening 5-0 victory over Fenton. “It was hard. You didn’t really have any time to think about it, which was a good and bad thing, because it kind of took your mind off the loss.”

Getting back into the swing of soccer didn’t take long.

“It was definitely much different,” said Neuer, who played as a sub in the midfield. “Basketball is with your hands, soccer is with your feet. I tried to get used to it. A couple of practices and I was already back on my game.”

“I haven’t really played that much, so it took a day or two,” DePestel said.

Hartland's Izzy DePestel (20) plays the ball during a 5-0 soccer victory over Fenton Wednesday, March 19, 2025.

Bringing basketball teammates over to the soccer field made the transition easier. Freshmen Samantha Morrish and Addison Trammel and sophomore Lexie Armor also play both sports.

“It’s really helped,” DePestel said. “We had a group that came over. A lot of them are younger, so I was able to bring them in and they fit in really well because they already knew everyone.”

The basketball team’s postseason run delayed finalizing the varsity and junior varsity soccer rosters.

Hartland's Paige Sundman (3) slips her elbow in front of a Fenton player to redirect the ball Wednesday, March 19, 2025.

“It threw us off tryouts wise, because they didn’t get here until after Wednesday,” Hartland coach Andrew Kartsounes said. “We had to extend them even through the scrimmage we had on Monday before we could pick teams. Now that we have everybody together, we’ll be working toward getting back to a deep run in the state tournament.”

The Eagles had a tougher-than-expected game against a Fenton team that has had four straight losing seasons, leading only 1-0 on a first-half goal by Addie Frantti before scoring four goals in the final 8 minutes and 29 seconds.

Hartland goalie Jenna Brock had to make only three saves for the shutout, but one was a diving stop on a potential game-tying shot with 11 minutes to go.

The game quickly got out of reach, as Frantti scored her second goal with 8:29 left and Claire L’Esperance scored twice and set up an Emma Storm goal off a corner kick.

“It felt good to get back into things after kind of a slow start to this game,” Frantti said. “Toward the end, we were connecting well.”

Hartland will travel to Rochester Adams at 7:15 p.m. Thursday for a rematch of last year’s state championship game, which the Highlanders won 2-0.

Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on X @BillKhan

This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Hartland opens girls soccer season with win over Fenton

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