OC Top 5 – All-Time Prep Soccer Greats

1 Alexi Lalas (BH Cranbrook) – A genuine icon of American soccer over the past two decades as a player, team executive and broadcaster. Lalas was named the state's Mr. Soccer as a senior at Cranbrook (where he was also an all-state forward on a state championship Cranes hockey team) in 1987 and went onto to have an All-American career as an ace defender at Rutgers (where he was also an all-conference forward on the school's hockey team), leading the Scarlet Knights to a pair of NCAA final four appearances. Selected as a member of the U.S. National Team in 1991, he was a part of two World Cup squads, has scored nine goals at the international level and became the first American player to ever play in Italy's top pro division. 

2 Ryan Mack (Birmingham Seaholm) – Another Mr. Soccer Award winner (1997) hailing from the OC who went onto have an outstanding collegiate career. Mack was an All-American at Indiana University in the late-90s and early-2000s and helped lead the Hoosiers to back-to-back National Championships in 1999 and 2000 as a high-scoring forward/midfielder. Started his pro career in 2003 being drafted by the MLS' Chicago Fire and is currently still playing professionally with the Milwaukee Wave of the Major Indoor Soccer League. While with the hometown Detroit Ignition (formerly the Detroit Rockers) in 2006 he tallied 29 goals in 37 games of action.

3 Jordan Gruber (Birmingham Groves) –Single-season scoring leader in the history of the state of Michigan by blasting an amazing 69 goals into the back of the net for the Falcons in the fall of 2000, spearheading them into a place in the D2 state championship game. Gruber played in college at Michigan State before embarking on a multi-year pro career which has taken him around the world and allowed him to play in places like Israel, Greece and Turkey.

4 Billy Weaver (Lake Orion) – Scored over 100 career goals for the Dragons in his four-year career, notching 53 goals (and 27 assists) as a senior in 2003, good for 10^th all-time in state history and the state's Mr. Soccer Award. Weaver played his college ball at Indiana just like Mack and earned Academic All-American honors in his time with the Hoosiers from 2004-2008.

5 Tim Webb (Birmingham Detroit Country Day) – A gifted midfielder who captained three consecutive DCD state title squads in the late-1980s and early-1990s and then went on to have a great college career in the Ivy League at Brown