By Rick Cassano

ANDERSON TOWNSHIP – Harrison High School’s girls soccer team is officially wearing the Division II bull’s-eye in the Southwest District.

That makes every game important as a sharpening tool, so don’t look for the Wildcats to celebrate a less-than-satisfying performance.

There was no real joy Saturday afternoon after Harrison, the No. 1 seed among area D-II squads, went on the road and took down Turpin 3-1 in a matchup dampened by raindrops.

“We’re up 3-0 at half and then they get a little lazy. That’s what we’re trying to talk to them about as we prepare for the tournament,” Wildcats coach Kelli Bill said. “They knock one in and the tables turn and they start to get the energy, and you don’t want that to happen in the tournament. We can’t just take minutes off.”

Harrison is 12-2-2 against a quality slate of opponents, and with no league title to play for, the goal has always been to get a high seed in the postseason.

“We’re super excited to be in this position. That’s what we wanted to do from the get-go,” Bill said. “We did what we set out to do. Now we’ve got to take care of business in our second season in the tournament.”

The Wildcats will find out their path Sunday at the tournament draw, then will play their regular-season finale at home Tuesday when Ursuline comes to Bill Kuntz Field for Senior Night. Evie Freel, Emma Smith and Olivia Fleckenstein are Harrison’s three seniors.

Seven Wildcats have double-digit points this year – Freel (nine goals, six assists), sophomore Lucy Schwieterman (eight goals, five assists), junior Anabelle Wiesemann (eight goals, four assists), sophomore Olivia Neal (eight goals, three assists), freshman Autumn Hoch (five goals, four assists), sophomore Addy Matheny (five goals, two assists) and Smith (three goals, four assists).

Neal, a forward/midfielder, believes Harrison has been seasoned for the challenging road ahead.

“I think we’re ready for it,” Neal said. “I think we have the potential to go through the tournament. We still have a lot of work to do and we’re still a young team, but we have a really talented group. We just need to work better together. That’s something we’re still working on.”

Neal, Schwieterman and Freel had the Wildcats’ goals against Turpin (6-6-2), with Hoch and Smith collecting assists. Junior Mallory Oliver got the victory in goal with five saves.

Bill said Harrison wasn’t necessarily crisp in building that 3-0 advantage at the break.

“Our first touch was way off today,” Bill said. “I don’t know if it’s Saturday afternoons or what it is. We were just not as clean as we typically are. They’ve just got to figure things out. Sometimes you have bad days, but everybody’s got to talk and work hard together.”

The Spartans had the Wildcats on their heels at times in the second half and finally broke through on the scoreboard with 12:56 remaining as Peyton Fitzgerald scored off an Avery Lehman assist.

It never seemed like Turpin could come all the way back, but the Spartans still got Harrison’s attention.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be an easy game, but it also wasn’t going to be our hardest game,” Neal said. “We were not at our best. We really needed to pick it up in the second half, and we came out and played worse. I think that’s what pulled our morale down. I don’t really have any excuses. We just should not have played like that.”

Turpin is 3-4-1 in Eastern Cincinnati Conference play. The Spartans got off to a 4-0-2 start this year, but they’ve scored only five goals in their last eight contests.

“All these teams in the ECC are playing great competition, so you can’t look at the records,” Bill said. “A win’s a win and we’ll take it, but we need to play at our level.”

Nicki Pendleton Skylis is in her seventh year as head coach at Turpin, though this is Year 1 of her second stint at the helm.

Skylis admitted her squad might have come out a little intimidated by Harrison.

“We tend to do that occasionally, but they need to get out of their heads with that because we should be confident moving forward and confident in what we can do,” Skylis said. “We’ve done some good things this year. I think they need to realize they can do it.”

She did like the Spartans’ fight in the second half and pointed to goalkeeper Finley Schwartz, defender Andersen Schmitz and forward Fitzgerald as standouts.

“We decided to play a little bit more like ourselves in the second half,” said Skylis, a 1998 Turpin graduate who was part of the Spartans’ Division I state championship team in 1996.

Skylis said Turpin has five seniors and a good number of veteran players. She’s optimistic about the D-II postseason.

“I fully expect us to come out hard and at least battle and compete in the tournament because I think we have that potential,” Skylis said.

The Spartans will be at home against Lebanon on Tuesday.