3. Birmingham Marian, 2015

RECORD: 26-1 COACH: Mary Cicerone

LEGACY: Of the six Class A state championships won by Marian and Cicerone, the 2015 title was by far the Mustangs’ most dominant. They won their seven state tournament games by 133 points — an average of 19 points. The Mustangs also had captured the 2014 title, 44-26 over Canton.

TOP PLAYERS: Samantha Thomas, Bailey Thomas, Kara Holinski and Jaeda Robinson. Samantha Thomas played at Arizona and her sister Bailey played at West Virginia before transferring to UNLV. Holinski played at MIT and Robinson at Central Michigan.

THOMAS SISTERS: Bailey was a junior and Samantha a sophomore in the 2015 championship season. They left after the season because their father, Derek, was hired to run an AAU program in Las Vegas, and they finished their prep careers in the desert. Before assisting Cicerone for a few years, Derek Thomas had been a men’s assistant coach at Detroit Mercy and a head coach at Western Illinois. As a sophomore, Samantha Thomas made the Free Press Dream Team. “She’s just an all-around player; she does everything well,” Cicerone said. “Defensively, she can guard the other team’s best ballhandler or post player.” Bailey Thomas, meanwhile, made fourth-team Class A.

DOMINATION: The state tournament was not much of a challenge for the Mustangs, who did not lose to a team from Michigan that season. Their closest tournament game was nine points, 51-42 over Waterford Kettering in the quarterfinals. After beating DeWitt, 51-37, in the final, Holinski talked about winning the title with the Thomas sisters: “And to have these two, who are the most incredible and humblest players to be so good and to be so hard-working and so willing to help their teammates, you don’t see it that often.” Against DeWitt, Samantha had 17 points and Bailey 12.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! With many players in foul trouble, Holinski had to play the entire game. She scored 10 points, didn’t commit a turnover and Cicerone went on and on about her shooting ability, defense and ballhandling before shouting: “She’s Kara Holinski, my best captain ever in the world, and she got us here! She’s our leader.”

BETCHA DIDN’T KNOW: During the postgame celebration, assistant coaches Derek Thomas and Michelle Lindsey carried Cicerone on the court.

By the time Alexi Lalas visited Ford Field in 2011 to promote a soccer tournament, he had spent two decades as the country’s most recognizable player — thanks to his fierce defensive play, grungy long red hair and threeinch goatee. As a senior midfielder at Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook, his 13 goals and 10 assists earned him the Mr. Soccer Award. He also captained the state champion hockey team. At Rutgers, he won the Hermann Award, the Heisman Trophy of college futbol. In the 1990s as a defender, he was a fixture on the U.S. national team (with 96 caps), played in Italy and was in on the ground floor of Major League Soccer. He then directed MLS front offices and became a preeminent analyst on soccer broadcasts.

MANDI WRIGHT/DETROIT FREE PRESS