Greenon boys soccer wins 4th straight title
SPRINGFIELD — Moments after beating Greeneview 5-3 at Don Nock Field on Oct. 14, the Greenon High School boys soccer team posed for pictures with four fingers in the air.
The victory gave the Knights (11-3-1) a share of their fourth straight Ohio Heritage Conference championship. Greenon and Fairbanks each finished 6-1 in the league.
“It was definitely a different road to get there this year for sure,” said Knights coach Jeff Nickles. “We referred to a lot of our games as ‘Not pretty, but gritty.’ That’s what we said a lot this season. All credit to the team. They got it done when they needed to get it done.”
It was the third time in school history the Knights have won four straight titles. They won five straight Central Buckeye Conference titles from 2008 to 2012.
The squad returned four seniors, including forward Masonn Hayslip, midfielders Clayton Minteer and Jaden Journell and defender David Duffey. With a young team, Nickles asked his seniors to help develop the young players as they learned what it took to win at the varsity level.
“They took it and they just ran with it,” he said. “It kept getting better and better as the season went on. You see guys start understanding a bit. Some of the guys who had never played varsity, I don’t think they understood what the pace was going to be or the expectations. Little by little, we just kept chipping away and chipping away.”
The Knights led 3-0 against Fairbanks on Oct. 12, but lost 4-3. Two days later, Greenon beat Greeneview to clinch a share of the league championship.
“I was really pleased with the way we kind of internalized that and went out two days later and beat Greeneview,” Nickles said. “They kept their heads about them and kept their wits about them and remembered what the endgame was and accomplished that goal. We’re sharing it, but we shared it last year. A title is a title the way we look at it.”
Hayslip leads the team with 16 goals and 14 assists, followed by both Journell (12 goals, five assists) and Minteer (eight goals, seven assists). Junior goalkeeper
Edwin Clonch has 51 saves and five shutouts this fall.
“It really was a top to bottom team effort,” Nickles said. “I couldn’t tell you how many guys we tried in different places. One game they’re getting 65 minutes and the next they may get 25 because we’re trying out things all over the place. Often in games we just took the hot hand. It took all 20 of them to put it all together.”
On Tuesday night, Greenon beat West Liberty-salem
1-0 for the second time this season in a Division III first-round state tournament match. Journell scored the game-winner with about two minutes remaining.
“We started getting a bit of momentum with about 10 minutes left and we kept chipping away until we finally got one,” Nickles said.
Ninth-seeded Greenon will travel to sixth-seeded Dayton Christian (9-6-1) for a second-round game at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Girls Tennis
The Northwestern doubles team of sophomore Taylor Errett and junior Leah Fraker fell one win shy of the state tournament, falling to the Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy team of senior Lynn Kader and junior Payton Puryear in the second round 6-4, 6-2 in the D-II district tournament at ATP Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason.
Errett and Fraker won their first-round match, beating the Chaminade Julienne team of seniors Morgan Dean and Maria Ely. It was the first match the Warriors have won at the district tournament in the past eight seasons.
Northwestern junior Macy Yeager fell in the first round to Cincinnati Seven Hills junior Sohana Thompson 6-0, 6-0 in the D-II districts singles tournament.
In the D-I singles tournament, Tecumseh junior Olivia Walrath lost to Wilmington senior Claire Burns 6-0, 6-1.
Cross Country
Shawnee senior Jordyn Dillavou won the Central Buckeye Conference Championship boys race in a time of 17 minutes, 10 seconds on Oct. 16 at Northwestern High School. Shawnee finished second in the Kenton Trail Division, 10 points behind first-place Jonathan Alder.
Shawnee senior Audrey Desantis won the girls race in 19:16 as the Shawnee girls team finished fourth overall.