SUTTONS BAY -- Suttons Bay had the Holmes-field advantage Tuesday evening.
Senior Danny Holmes scored three goals to power the host Norsemen to a 3-1 Division 4 soccer regional win over North Muskegon.
Suttons Bay (16-6-2) will play Burt Lake Northern Michigan Christian Academy for the title Thursday.
The Eagles (21-4) blanked McBain Northern Michigan Christian 5-0 in Thursday's nightcap.
"It's going to be one tall order to beat Suttons Bay," Burt Lake coach Rusty Chatfield said. "Number 4 (Holmes), he's something."
Holmes took over the opener after re-entering the game late in the first half. Holmes had come out of the lineup briefly when he jammed his left thumb.
"I got it (thumb) caught in a jersey," he said. "It hurt real bad. I got some ice on it, went back in and it was all good after that."
Holmes netted his first goal with 4:57 left in the half after taking a perfect set-up pass from Evan Glowicki.
He made it 2-0 less than nine minutes into the second half, converting a pass from Ryan Manning.
North Muskegon (14-6-3) countered with 28 minutes left on a Simon VanBergen goal.
Less than a minute later, however, Holmes answered with his third goal.
"We didn't get down (after VanBergen's goal)," Holmes said. "We didn't let it affect us. We got it right back."
Goalie Jared Orban and the Suttons Bay defense took over from there.
"We got the goals when we needed them -- it was a great performance by Danny." Orban said. "We knew if we played our hardest, and we played with heart, that we would win it."
Holmes deflected credit afterwards.
"I didn't feel any different," he said. "I just got some real nice passes from my teammates. This was probably our best game of the season."
Suttons Bay coach Randy U'Ren was thrilled for his captain.
"You love to see a guy like Danny -- who's just a fantastic young man, a great soccer player, one of our senior captains -- come through with his best game in a setting like this. You can't ask for more."
Suttons Bay also beat North Muskegon in a regional opener two years ago.
"We knew they were a good, fast, physical team," U'Ren said. "We had to be on our A game and we were."
Like several schools around the state, North Muskegon has been hit by a flu outbreak.
"We were nervous about coming up here," coach Jeremy Tjapkes said. "We started getting sick on Saturday and we didn't know how many guys would be able to play. As of (Monday), I thought I was going to be missing five or six starters. But they sucked it up, went to school, made the trip and tried to play. But they didn't have their legs.
"I don't want to take anything away from Suttons Bay, though. We got beat by a good team. Suttons Bay deserved to win. Randy had his guys prepared. I wish them luck the rest of the way."
Suttons Bay has enjoyed quite a turnaround after a 0-3-2 start. It comes as no surprise to U'Ren.
"The potential was there all year long," he said. "We graduated all of our goal-scorers (last year). All these guys were role players. They had to learn how to score goals and that's the hardest thing to do in the game of soccer. It took us a season to get going, to get people into the right places, to get confidence, to get them enough repetitions to do it. Finishing was the thing. Finally, luckily, it started clicking."
Finishing was the key in the second game, too.
David Thompson and Aaron Chatfield scored two goals apiece to propel Burt Lake NMCA into the finals. Paul Chatfield added a solo goal.
"We didn't get that many shots," Rusty Chatfield said. "We just finished well."
Thompson, Aaron Chatfield, Josh Lovitt and Steve Thompson drew assists. Josh Fosmore had five saves in goal.
"It was a solid performance," Chatfield said.
Burt Lake NMCA last won a regional title in 2004. Suttons Bay won the regional in 2007.
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