By Rick Cassano
HARRISON – Carson Koehl called it an emotional night for Harrison High School’s seniors.
The host Wildcats ran into a hot Loveland squad Tuesday in their Division II district boys soccer opener and exited with a 2-0 defeat as the Tigers’ Blake Rohlfs tallied both goals at Bill Kuntz Field.
It was the end of the prep soccer trail for Koehl and fellow seniors Hayden Carter, Brady Ruther, Aidan Bolser, Michael Wiesemann Jr., Ben Gill and Lucas Ballard.
“We expected a hard-fought game. We knew it was going to be like this through and through,” said Koehl, a midfielder. “Some things didn’t go our way with referees’ decisions and the bounce of the ball, but that’s the way the game is played. I’m so proud of the boys. We gave everything we had. We left everything on the field.”
Harrison finished 9-6-3 and hasn’t had a losing season since 2021. Over the last five years, the Wildcats are 62-20-11.
“This program was everything to me through my four years here,” Koehl said. “I think we put out how we want to play as Harrison soccer. I hope the seniors passed on the love of the game that we have here to our next generation so they can keep it rolling. These guys are my A1s. I’ve been with them all throughout high school and even before that. I’ll forever remember this team.”
Fifth-seeded Loveland, which got knocked out of the tournament by Harrison in a shootout last year, has found a late-season groove in 2026. The Tigers (9-7-2) placed eighth in the 10-team Eastern Cincinnati Conference, but they’re 6-1-2 over their last nine games.
Rohlfs, a junior midfielder, tallied his seventh and eighth goals of the season to oust No. 4 seed Harrison and push Loveland into a noon district final against second-seeded Troy (12-2-4) on Saturday at Hamilton.
“They’re really buzzing right now,” Wildcats coach Connor McCurley said. “They’ve hit their stride at a perfect time and that’s a lot of what the postseason is about, getting your guys to play at the pace and the speed and the physicality that you want going into the tournament.
“I didn’t think we were in a bad spot in regard to that, but we knew it was going to be a tall task. Looking back on our game from last year in the same round with them, we got exactly what we expected. They were able to execute their opportunities and we didn’t, so that’s how it goes.”
Junior Brady Smith earned the shutout in goal for Loveland. Tigers coach Mike Dunlap loved the defensive work provided by his all-senior back line of Nick Paumier, Collin Rennock, Brody Watts and Jonah Schmidt.
“I felt like we executed our game plan today,” Dunlap said. “The last month of the season we’ve been playing good soccer. We’ve got good guys coming off the bench, our starting 11 is playing very well, and defensively we just keep getting clean sheet after clean sheet. We haven’t had a goal scored on us in the run of play for a month.
“If we continue to play the soccer that we’re playing and stay united like we are right now, I think we can make some noise in the tournament.”
Junior Luke Davis (11 goals, one assist), Ballard (10 goals, two assists), junior Eli Gaffney (four goals, eight assists) and sophomore Rylan Murphy (three goals, four assists) have been Harrison’s point leaders this season.
The Wildcats weren’t bad against Loveland. They simply couldn’t connect enough offensive dots to dent the scoreboard.
“They have some really good players over there,” Dunlap said. “We had to make sure that we planned for that. I felt like our defense did a really good job of containing their threats.
“We do play a difficult schedule and this is the reason why. We took some lumps early in the season no doubt. We had injuries and things that we had to go through, but we pulled through that and that’s a testament to these guys out here.”
Rohlfs scored with 13:05 left in the first half and then again with 4:32 remaining in the half. The Tigers thought they had gone up 1-0 a couple minutes before Rohlfs officially broke the ice, but the officials made a no-goal call when one of his shots bounced on the goal line.
Rohlfs had another a high-quality chance to score with 9:27 left in the contest, but Carter blocked his penalty-kick shot.
“I think that sent a little surge into us for a minute, then they were able to kind of stomp down the fire that it lit for us,” McCurley said.
Carter finished with 11 saves, and McCurley said Carter and Ballard might end up playing collegiately somewhere. Koehl said he’s thinking about playing club soccer at the next level.
Koehl and Carter were the Wildcats’ senior captains, and Harper Wagner and Davis were the junior captains. McCurley said he beefed up Harrison’s schedule this season to challenge his squad.
“I thought there were moments where we were really, really good and then there were moments where we were really, really bad,” McCurley said. “Inconsistency is what we struggled with this year.
“When these guys are motivated, when they played with the effort they played with tonight, a lot of times that was good enough for us to execute and get the job done against some good teams. We had some good wins against Fairfield, Little Miami, Kings, and we also had some bad losses.
“One thing I hope the underclassmen take away from this season is that it’s not optional to show up and pick and choose the times we play with the standard that we have. It’s required every night.”
McCurley believes the program has a solid foundation.
“I think we’ve really established who we are and what our identity is and what our core values are,” he said. “We did a lot of reflection after some bad losses this year. We spent some time in the classroom and not even coming out to the field. I think those learning moments will help carry us forward into next year and beyond.”
This was McCurley’s second year as head coach. He was an assistant under Chris Johnson for two seasons before that.
“This senior class is special to me because this is my first time seeing a class all the way through,” McCurley said. “We’ve got some really special individuals that I know are going to go on and do some great things in life. I’m hoping soccer can just be part of their story, not the end of it.”