Girls Soccer

Harrison fights off Ursuline to continue strong season, puts focus on ending tournament drought

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Harrison High School's Abby Smith delivers a corner kick Sept. 14, 2024, during a girls soccer game against Ursuline at Harrison. The host Wildcats won 3-2. RICK CASSANO/STAFF

HARRISON — Harrison High School’s girls soccer team is competing at a high level again this season with a goal of going even higher.

The Wildcats are striving to repeat as Southwest Ohio Conference champions and are off to a 7-1-1 start after Saturday afternoon’s 3-2 victory over visiting Ursuline at Bill Kuntz Field.

“I have been so lucky,” fifth-year HHS coach Kelli Bill said. “These girls are just amazing girls on and off the field. I don’t have anybody that’s selfish. They don’t care who scores. If you look at our stats, I think they’re pretty much all over the place.

“They’re all contributing and they all want it for each other, and I think it’s important when you don’t have those selfish players on the field. We have a lot of good players that have just jelled together.”

Harrison is 6-0-1 since suffering a 2-0 loss to Greater Miami Conference leader Oak Hills on Aug. 20. The Wildcats tied Girls Greater Catholic League leader Seton 2-2 on Sept. 11.

Senior center back Shelby Piepmeier, junior center midfielder Abby Smith and senior defender Delaney Benedict are the captains for Harrison, which posted a 13-4-1 record last season.

“I think we’re definitely a very good team, very comparable to last year,” Piepmeier said. “Last year we had a strong senior group much bigger than this year’s group, but we still have strong seniors this year. Even with the seniors we lost last year, we worked through the offseason and worked through the summer to prepare for big games and the postseason so we can make it a lot further than we did last year.

“We have a lot of skill. We have a lot of girls who play club and work hard in the offseason to be able to connect here, and we connect very well. We work to gain that chemistry and it’s not hard because the girls are great. We’ve set ourselves up for success.”

The postseason has been a nagging pain for the Wildcats. They’ve dropped their last seven tournament openers and haven’t won in the postseason since topping Colerain 3-1 on Oct. 18, 2016.

Harrison has dropped down to Division II this year in the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s new five-division setup. That should boost the Wildcats’ tournament hopes, though Bill said Southwest Ohio has a lot of quality D-II teams.

“It does level the playing field, but it’s no lie — Division II is tough,” she said. “We feel like we’ve got that monkey on our back in the tournament, so that’s really been their goal from the get-go. I hate to say it, but our conference has not been that strong. No disrespect to any of them, but the girls feel like we better win it and that’s expected. I think the girls are setting higher goals for themselves and want to make a run in the tournament.

“I think people have always looked at Harrison as not a strong soccer community, and I feel like the girls have really been fighting to earn that respect the past few years. I think we’re starting to earn that respect from some of the schools. People know they’re going to have a tough game on their hands when they play us. We’re trying to build our schedule and make it tougher. We want to challenge our girls.”

Smith said the players believe they’re in a good situation to finally achieve some tournament success.

“I think being Division II is a great opportunity for us to go far,” Smith said. “We need to work hard all season and get a good ranking and gain people’s respect and win the hard games. Playing with these girls is very fun. The chemistry’s great and the girls are great. There’s great personalities on this team.”

Saturday’s contest against winless Ursuline (0-8) may have looked like a mismatch on paper, but Bill said the Lions have been competitive all season against a difficult schedule, so she expected a good matchup.

Harrison never trailed, but couldn’t put Ursuline away after taking a 3-1 lead into halftime. Piepmeier, Smith and sophomore Evelyn Freel all scored for the Wildcats, with Smith contributing two assists and junior Reece Lazarus adding one.

“I was concerned because I didn’t feel like we played our best in the second half,” Bill said. “We’re battling some injuries and illnesses and the girls are fighting through it, but I felt like you could tell in the second half that they were wearing down. Ursuline put the pressure on us. They were in our half a lot more in the second half than they were in the first half.”

Freshman goalkeeper Mallory Oliver came up with 14 saves for Harrison. Olivia Baird and Alaina French had the goals for the Lions and Maria Garza chipped in an assist, while keeper Claire Juram collected eight saves.

“I think the goals we had were good goals,” Piepmeier said. “With what we were coming in with and battling, we played as good as we could and got the result we wanted.”

“It’s a hot day and everybody’s coming off injuries and sickness, not that it’s an excuse,” Smith said. “They are a good team and play hard, even though their record doesn’t show it. We just had to make sure we finished the game and didn’t get ahead of ourselves. We didn’t think we were going to come in and just beat them without working.”

Piepmeier and Smith teamed up for a well-executed goal to start the day’s scoring with 16:10 left in the first half. Smith lifted a high corner kick from the HHS sideline and Piepmeier elevated to head the ball past Juram.

“I’ve been waiting for that one,” Smith said. “Usually I’m just really looking for anyone to get anything on it, but usually Shelby’s there and gets a piece of it no matter what. She just got it in the right spot.”

“A lot of times we take corners and the sun’s in my eyes, but this time I was able to see the ball and just get it right in,” Piepmeier said. “Abby definitely does a good job of placing her corner kicks. I think we’re a lot better when we can get the first touch on it and get it out of the air, and then if we don’t get it in the goal, we can get a deflection and put it in. We definitely don’t do a good job when the ball’s just bouncing around. With Abby’s corners and how she can get them in the air and put them right in the PK area, that’s good to set us up for a goal.”

Eleven different players have scored goals this year for the Wildcats, led by Smith and Lazarus with six apiece and Piepmeier with five. Smith leads the squad with six assists.

“Abby’s got an eye,” Bill said. “She see those girls running from all over the place and just distributes the ball so well from the midfield. She’s really done an amazing job this year.”

Harrison will host Talawanda in SWOC play Tuesday night. Piepmeier, Benedict, Lauren Phillips, Niaomi Pierman, Grace Kohls and Hannah Mirizzi will be honored in a Senior Night ceremony.

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