Final Four-bound New Albany blanks Harrison to halt Wildcats’ unbeaten season in D-II regional

PLAIN CITY — Gaven Johnson will remember his Harrison High School boys soccer career following a consistently upward path. A tough ending wasn’t going to change that.

The Wildcats’ unbeaten campaign came to a close Wednesday night with a 2-0 loss to New Albany in a Division II regional semifinal at Jonathan Alder, marking the first-ever regional appearance for Harrison (18-1-1).

Johnson, a senior midfielder and four-year starter, walked away as the program’s all-time leader in goals (57) and assists (52).

“I’m just really proud of this team and how far this program has come in the last four years,” Johnson said. “This is probably the best group to ever come through this program. We would’ve liked to win tonight, but looking back at what we’ve all accomplished, we’ll take it.”

The best season in school history included 11 seniors — Johnson, Jimmy Lockwood, Kelan Borgemenke, C.J. Davis, Jack Geers, Evan Esterkamp, Landen Anderson, Mitchell Wessel, Michael Calderone, Jacob Warren and Connor Ferry.

Wednesday’s affair was likely the end for Wildcats coach Chris Johnson as well after 23 seasons at the helm. He didn’t want to make any official proclamations right after the defeat, but said he’ll likely move on to watch his son Gaven play at the next level.

“I will not be taking the spotlight away from anybody. I will drift into the background very quietly,” Chris Johnson said. “We’re very proud of everything the boys have accomplished. It’s kind of surreal at this point. Almost-November soccer for Harrison is not something people talk about.

“I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly here over the years, so this is really good. I’d like to think I’m leaving it better than I found it. Our trajectory in Harrison is going in a good direction.”

Harrison has gone from 6-7-4 to 8-7-2 to 17-1 to 18-1-1 over the last four years. The Wildcats haven’t taken a defeat in their last 41 regular-season matches, going 38-0-3 during that stretch.

Chris Johnson is obviously proud of his son’s accomplishments, but he said the entire senior class is special.

“I think so highly of them, it’s tough to really put into words right now,” Johnson said. “The work and what they bring every day, they mean the world to me. They’re irreplaceable right now.”

Gaven Johnson can recall starting to play soccer at the age of 7 in a recreational league behind a church near his home.

“I asked my dad if there was anything more competitive … my club journey started from there,” Johnson said. “Going into high school, my dad asked if I wanted to look into playing for one of the top private-school programs in the area. Growing up around this Harrison program, I wanted to play for my home school team and win some things with them. I wanted to bring some pride to this program and make it a team to be reckoned with. I feel I’ve done that.”

Johnson said he’s verbally committed to continue his career at Macalester College, an NCAA Division III school in Saint Paul, Minn. He said he’s earned a Governor’s Merit Scholarship, so the money he could get from a school in Ohio might change his collegiate choice, but he’s excited about playing for Macalester at this point.

Johnson wasn’t able to add to his career offensive totals in the matchup with New Albany (18-1), a highly skilled squad that followed its win over Harrison by defeating Anderson 1-0 on Sunday to advance to the Final Four.

In the last five seasons, the Eagles have been to state three times and the regional finals twice. Tenth-year coach Johnny Ulry said there’s no question that a high bar is part of his program.

“This is the standard, not the exception,” Ulry said. “We expect to be in these moments. We expect to be competing for championships. Every one of our groups expects that.”

Harrison got off to a quick start and controlled play through the first 10 minutes, but New Albany took off from there and scored twice in the first half against the Wildcats’ Lockwood in goal.

Ulry said his squad needed to shake off the rust after not playing very much in the last couple weeks. He also noted that Harrison had a lot of numbers in the back end, limiting the Eagles’ ability to get downhill as quickly as they wanted to.

“We’ve had a lot of down time, so we needed to get ourselves back in a rhythm,” Ulry said. “To be frank, we’ve never played Harrison before, so a lot of it was just figuring out what they were going to do. For that first 10 minutes or so, it was all them. Then we kind of woke up and started to play a little bit.”

Parker Barr broke the ice for New Albany by scoring off a Tyler Sammons assist with 15:02 left in the opening half. The Eagles scored again as the final seconds of the half ticked away, with Kuda Kanyongo getting a goal and Matt Boyd an assist with 0:03 on the clock.

Ulry said he just told his guys they had nothing to lose by pushing hard in the last minute, and that encouragement paid off in a big way. New Albany went to hit the post a couple times after the break.

“We’re thinking let’s get to halftime only down one and see what we can do to hold on … and the second goal was a dagger,” Chris Johnson said. “They made some great tactical adjustments and we tried to disrupt them as much as we could for as long as we could. We probably got a little tired in some spots. They play a really good style of soccer. It’s soccer we haven’t seen in a long time. Every player on the field’s dangerous.”

Harrison got a little bit of a second wind in the second half, but never could get anything past New Albany goalkeeper Wyatt Butler.

“We had to try to prevent them from getting possession as much as possible,” Gaven Johnson said. “We knew they were going to have a ton of it, but we wanted to show our grit. We have that blue-collar mentality. That’s a key part of Harrison.”

Ulry said the Wildcats deserved credit for raising their game for a good portion of the second half.

“Things got a little bit hairy and a little bit physical, but it’s the playoffs, right?” Ulry said. “You’ve got seniors over there playing for their life, so it gets a little testy at the end. What an unbelievable season Harrison had. Their coach has done an unbelievable job with that program.”

The Eagles will meet North Ridgeville in a state semifinal at Mount Vernon on Wednesday night.