Badin Determined To Get Piece Of Another GCL Coed Title After Familiar 0-0 Tie With Alter

By Rick Cassano

HAMILTON – Badin High School’s girls soccer team hasn’t allowed a goal in Greater Catholic League Coed Division play this season.

What the Rams don’t have at this point is their sixth straight league title. But they’re planning to take care of that this weekend.

Badin coach Chris Slusher believes everything is coming together for his squad and couldn’t complain about Wednesday night’s 0-0 tie with visiting Kettering Alter at the Matandy SportsPlex, a deadlock that clinched at least a share of the GCL Coed title for the Knights.

“We didn’t get the result we wanted, but I was very happy with our energy and our performance,” Slusher said. “This is a grind-out kind of game and I don’t want to discredit Alter at all, but I just felt like we were unlucky quite a bit.

“I feel like every year the league comes down to us and Alter, and they’re having a great year. You know it’s going to be a war when these two teams get together.”

The Division III Rams are 8-7-1 overall and 3-0-1 in the league, while Division IV Alter is 12-3-2 and finished with a 4-0-1 GCLC mark. Badin will look to grab a share of the championship Saturday afternoon when it closes the regular season at Dayton Chaminade Julienne (7-7-1, 1-2-1).

“We definitely want to win the league,” said Rams sophomore Lucy Nieman, a midfielder and forward. “But the tournament’s a pretty big deal too. We’ve been preparing for this all season. We’ve been improving every game. Our goal is to keep getting 5 percent better, and I think we’re on track for that. We all have a really strong bond. That helps us connect and build as a team.”

Junior midfielder Audrey Rhodis said squaring off with an opponent like Alter is great prep work for the postseason.

“We are so ready for the tournament,” Rhodis said. “We’ve definitely been up in the second half of the season. I think it’s just the work we put in and trying different things. At the beginning of the season we had a ton of injuries, but we’ve really figured it out and so many people have stepped up, which I’m so proud of.”

Badin has rallied from a 1-5 start to the season. Alter began with a 2-3 record and hasn’t lost since Sept. 1. The Rams and Knights have won every GCL Coed title since McNicholas was the Central Division champion in 2017.

Wednesday’s contest turned out to be the third straight tie in the Badin-Alter series. The teams are dead even at 9-9-6 over their last 24 meetings.

“That sounds about right,” Knights coach Andy Vollmar said. “Nobody’s going to run away with this game. You saw both teams playing really hard tonight. You could tell the championship was on the line.

“Give Badin credit. They defended us well. We had some looks at their goal, they had some looks at ours. What can you say? This is what high school sports is really about.”

The goalkeeping was outstanding in both directions. Morgan Byrne totaled 12 saves for the Rams and Aleks Jones made 10 stops for Alter, though Jones did catch one big break.

Nieman had a penalty kick in the last six minutes of the first half and knocked it off the post in the game’s best scoring opportunity.

“There were a lot of thoughts going through my head,” Nieman said. “I was just a little bit off. It’s not what I wanted, but I had to move on.”

“That was a great play by Lucy to get in the box and get fouled,” Slusher said. “The PK was just unlucky. She struck it well.”

There’s no question that both teams had multiple quality approaches to the goal. Vollmar said forward Paige Sheets and attacking midfielder Atuganile Mwamukonda shined in the Knights’ offensive-surge department.

“I would like to have seen us maybe be a little more direct in the attack, but I can’t complain,” said Vollmar, noting that Molly Miller was a standout on defense. “The girls knew what was on the line and gave it their all. You can’t take anything for granted in this league. There are no cupcakes. You have to show up every night.”

Rhodis had three shots on goal for Badin. She said Jones made a nice save on one of them. Another shot whizzed just over the crossbar.

“Honestly, I felt like one of our shots would fall in,” Rhodis said. “They were really aggressive, but I think we were more skilled. They had really strong girls up top and in the middle. We did a really good job of handling them.”

Slusher liked the Rams’ back-line play provided by Rylyn Reynolds, Bella Heile, Danielle Birri and Zoe Wolpert. The Knights hadn’t been shut out since last year’s 0-0 tie with the Rams in the regular-season finale.

Badin has continued to shuffle its lineup throughout the fall because of injuries. Byrne was out for more than half of the Fenwick game last week after getting cleated in the knee, with Maddie Treadway finishing the 1-0 triumph in goal. Nieman missed the Carroll game Sept. 30 with a foot issue.

“We’re getting healthier,” Slusher said. “I love our mentality. I think we’re peaking at the right time.”

The Rams advanced to the D-III state final last year and lost to Bay Village Bay 1-0. Badin is seeded fourth in this year’s South 4 bracket and will host No. 13 New Richmond on Oct. 22. If the seeds hold true, the Rams will play top-seeded Vandalia Butler from the North 4 bracket in a district title game.

“I didn’t know with our record what our seed would be, but we have two potential home games and we’re in the same slot as we were last year. I kind of like that,” Slusher said. “I feel really good about where we’re at and where we’re heading.”

Alter is a No. 1 seed in D-IV and will host No. 17 Springfield Northwestern on Oct. 22.

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