Surging Badin Gets Two Late Goals And Blanks Monroe For Fourth Straight Win

By Rick Cassano

HAMILTON – A season-opening defeat failed to demoralize Badin High School’s boys soccer team.

Indeed, it might have been the best thing that could’ve happened to the Rams.

Badin hasn’t lost since that 3-1 defeat at the hands of Elder on Aug. 14 and is now riding a four-game winning streak after taking down visiting Monroe 2-0 on Tuesday night at the Matandy SportsPlex.

“Elder was a building point for our team,” said senior Nate Von Bargen, who converted the game-winning goal against Monroe. “We’ve built off Elder every single game after that. Our motto is ‘Done. Next.’ We’re not looking forward to the next team until we’re done with the team we’re playing.”

First-year Rams coach Brad Specht said his team’s reaction to adversity has been outstanding.

“I felt like we had a great offseason,” Specht said. “We were prepared, but Elder punched us in the mouth and I think that’s exactly what we needed. We adjusted a couple things and mentally reset what we needed to reset. We developed an identity that we are choosing to follow. We’re playing to who we believe we are, and we’ve got some momentum building.”

Badin – a Division III state semifinalist in 2025 — has matched last year’s 4-1 start by outscoring Madeira, Hamilton, La Salle and Monroe by a combined 15-3 margin over the last four games.

Tuesday’s triumph wasn’t easy, but the Rams got goals from Von Bargen and Tyler Buschelmann in the last eight minutes to conquer the Hornets. It was Badin’s third 2-0 win over Monroe in the last two seasons.

Parker Young notched a pair of assists and goalkeeper Jacob Aichele made three saves for the Rams, who will visit Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy on Thursday.

“After the game, we talked about how we’re going to be in battles like that,” Specht said. “When you come off the season they had last year and you produce early success, you develop a target on your back, and we’ve got to handle that. Monroe was not lacking motivation and put up a good fight. There were some players from Monroe that really stepped up and played big. They made us earn it.”

It was a difficult night for the Hornets (1-3-1), who have some tradition of their own and haven’t endured a losing season since going 5-7-5 in 2021.

Monroe head coach Billy Gronostaj picked up two yellow cards and was ejected late in the first half. The Hornets also got more than tripled in the shooting department.

“We’ve been trying to concentrate on finishing, and I think the number of shots on goal was a telltale,” Monroe assistant coach Rick Duff said. “I think it was 17-5, and if you give up 17 shots, you’re bound to have one or two go in.

“We expected to come in playing with much more toughness and take control of the match with 50-50 balls, and we were beaten to most of them. I think we had trouble getting the ball back on the floor and finding us. We got on our heels. Badin brought a good match, they brought the fight to us, and we didn’t have a good response.”

It was still a scoreless deadlock heading down the stretch when Von Bargen won a battle in front of the goal and booted the ball past Hornets goalie Toby Kramb with 7:41 remaining.

Von Bargen admitted it felt like this contest was headed to a scoreless tie, even with the Rams clearly having the better run of play.

“I prayed to God and God answered my prayer and I got a goal,” Von Bargen said. “We expected a hard battle with Monroe. We definitely got down to business and grinded through the whole thing.”

He described the goal like this: “The keeper was trying to save it and it bounced off his gloves. Another guy tried to clear it and then another guy tried to clear it, and after it went off his shin, I just tapped it in. Honestly, it was maybe the best feeling of my life. Ball in net, ball in net. That’s all I was thinking.”

It was the kind of persistence goal that Specht said is needed in a tough battle.

“The halftime talk was it’s not going to come easy,” the BHS coach said. “It’s going to be the little poke. It’s going to be the dirty work. We talk a lot about how the game honors toughness, and we’ve identified that as the little things. We need to be willing to do the little pokes and lean in a little bit extra, and that’s exactly what Nate did. He earned that one.”

The icing on the cake came when Buschelmann headed in a corner kick from Young with just 0:07 left on the clock.

Specht said the Rams were a little rusty from not playing in a week, but he liked the overall performance.

“It was hot tonight. We talked about the fact that we’re 17 deep and everybody has to play their role,” Specht said. “When everybody was called on, we stepped up to the plate and dominated whatever our responsibility was. We take a lot of pride in doing it together.”

Von Bargen said he was walking away from the contest feeling “joyfulness.”

“We all played selfless,” he said. “We all played for each other tonight, and that’s something you don’t really have on every team.”

Duff said losing Gronostaj didn’t light a fire under the Hornets.

“I think it’s always going to have an effect when your head coach has to go off,” Duff said. “Sometimes it inspires guys and they respond with more intensity, and that was not our response. We just kind of got flat.”

Kramb and center back Wiles Langhorne were Monroe’s standouts, according to Duff. The Hornets will host Harrison on Thursday before beginning Southwestern Buckeye League Southwestern Division play next week.

Monroe lost nine seniors from last season’s 12-4-2 squad.

“We lost some good impact players, so we do have a younger bunch coming through,” Duff said. “We just have to capitalize on opportunities and keep our chins up. Tonight was not a true testament of who the guys have been all preseason.

“We had a very difficult preseason. Now we have to transition into starting to win the even games. Our conversation with them was about how we rebound from setbacks. We need a full match out of everybody in the program.”

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