HARRISON — It was a moment filled with relief, excitement and history when the final horn sounded Monday night at Bill Kuntz Field.
Finally the time had come for Harrison High School’s girls soccer team to celebrate a postseason victory.
The Wildcats hadn’t enjoyed a tournament win since beating Colerain 3-1 on Oct. 18, 2016, but they ended that eight-game postseason skid by blanking visiting Kings 4-0 in a Division II district opener.
“We’re just celebrating because we haven’t been here for so long,” fifth-year Harrison coach Kelli Bill said. “The girls have been playing great. They’ve had a great season. This has been our goal all year, so we should feel good about it. Let’s celebrate every victory.”
What the Wildcats needed to avoid was a slow start in their quest to make school history and they were quite successful at that, getting a goal from Hailey Turner in the opening 3:19.
Shelby Piepmeier, Abby Smith and Reece Lazarus added goals for third-seeded Harrison (16-1-1), which took its only loss in a 2-0 contest with Oak Hills on Aug. 20.
“I think all the tournament losses fueled us to work even harder,” said senior defensive midfielder Delaney Benedict, a tri-captain along with Piepmeier and Smith. “I’m excited to keep going and see what we can do as a team. We want to make more history.”
Bill said to the best of her knowledge, the Wildcats have never played for a district championship. That’s what will be on the line Thursday night at 7:00 when Harrison meets No. 5 seed St. Ursula (8-9) at Mariemont.
“I keep telling the girls we can do it,” Bill said. “Harrison hasn’t been strong at soccer. I don’t think we get the respect that I feel these girls have earned this year, so they’re out to prove themselves.”
The Wildcats have moved down to D-II this season in the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s new five-division setup. That has boosted Harrison’s tournament hopes, though Bill said D-II is hardly an easy road in Southwest Ohio.
Turner’s goal quickly erased any nerves that might have been weighing on the Wildcats. The junior beat Kings goalkeeper Elora Twilley for her fifth goal of the season.
“I was calling for the ball. I just took a touch, went around a defender and shot it,” Turner said. “I was really excited. I felt like it encouraged all of my teammates and brought our game up as a whole. I feel like we were working really well together. We implemented some of the stuff we worked on at practice, and that really helped us.”
Fourth-year Kings coach Maggie Caha said it’s been a tough season for the seventh-seeded Knights (5-9-4). They came to Harrison with some hope, but the Wildcats gained momentum with the early goal and just took off from there.
“What we expected was a good Harrison team and my God did that show up,” Caha said. “They’ve got so many dynamic players and strong players, and their ball work is phenomenal. That first goal opened everything up for them. We did our best to control it and work around it, but a team that strong physically and mentally is hard to beat and hard to contain. I know they’re going to win districts. I’m excited to watch them lift that trophy. That’ll be cool.”
Smith, Lazarus and Evelyn Freel all had assists for Harrison. Freshman goalkeeper Mallory Oliver pitched a shutout with seven saves.
Twilley (three saves) and Lilly Medina (five saves) each played a half in goal for Kings, which finished seventh in the Eastern Cincinnati Conference this year. The Knights are losing eight seniors — Medina, Victoria Gorman, Jenna Burke, Ava Davidson, Brooklynn Leist, Ava Marketos, Emma Titler and Ansley Leek.
“And we graduated 10 last year,” Caha said. “We’ve got a couple freshmen already on varsity this year, so we’ve got a lot of growing that’s going to happen. Our girls fought through a lot this year. The ECC is a very tough conference.”
Bill said the Wildcats scrimmage Kings annually, but they hadn’t met in a game since 2017.
The HHS coach said she never got the feeling her players were so nervous that they couldn’t win, “but they wanted to get that tournament monkey off their back. Last year we thought we had a good shot and it just didn’t go our way, so we know those things happen sometimes. I think they have all kind of leaned on each other. They have confidence in one another.”
Bill was actually the boys junior varsity coach at Harrison when the Wildcat girls beat Colerain in the tournament in 2016. Harrison lost to the Cardinals 3-0 in the regular-season finale that season, then returned the favor three days later.
“I remember that group of girls,” Bill said. “I wasn’t at that game, but it was a great group of girls that we had here that year.”
The Wildcats have won back-to-back Southwest Ohio Conference championships. They have outscored their opponents 64-10 this year and haven’t allowed a goal in their last five games.
The Harrison-St. Ursula winner will advance to the regional semifinals to face either Mount Notre Dame or Troy on Tuesday.
“It’s exciting,” Turner said. “We’ve got to keep encouraging each other and keep working for what’s ahead of us, but I think we can do really well and keep pushing forward.”
“I think we can go as far as we want to,” Benedict added. “As hard as we play is how far we can go.”
