Indian Hill blanks Twinsburg for boys Division III state soccer title

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the first half of Sunday afternoon's Division III boys state soccer championship at Historic Crew Stadium Indian Hill's Connor Wilkes crossed a ball across the face of Twinsburg's goal, but Wilkes hit it too hard for the Braves to capitalize.

Just seven minutes into the second half the Braves found themselves with the same opportunity. This time it was Aiden Foster with the cross to a streaking Max Grebe who needed just one touch to put Indian Hill on the board, and secure the school's first state soccer championship.

"I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude for these guys and all those guys back in the locker room. The work that they've put in, the invisible hours that no one will ever ever know and no one will ever see," Braves head coach Bryan Daniel said. "This isn't a seasons worth of work. I mean, this is years. And that's something that's special. We knew early in the season that this was a special bunch, and that started with the leadership of our seniors and our captains. And I'm just over with gratitude for the work that these guys have put in, and their investment in the program."

This season Indian Hill (22-0-2) made it's first trip to the state semifinal since 2013. The Braves have made the final four on four other occasions, but have not been in a state championship since back-to-back runner-up finishes in 1986 and 1987.

For Twinsburg (21-2) these are completely uncharted waters. The Tigers won the schools first regional title, first state semifinal and made their first state championship appearance this season.

"We've had some great teams in the past, and it's been hard for them to break through. And so I think when we saw these guys in June first get together and train, we knew that we had something special," Tigers head coach Mike Lally said. "It was just, could we get them to to realize that potential? And I think the thing I'm probably most excited about this group of guys is they accepted that challenge and continue to work to get better throughout the course of the year, it wasn't just, hey, we're a good team. We're going to roll over people."

The two sides didn't take long trying to feel each other out in the first half.

The Braves were in attack mode early and found themselves with a free kick from the top of the box, that would have gone in if not for a spectacular save from Tigers goalie Cooper Goodman, as well as a corner kick.

The Tigers countered with a couple of promising throw-ins and dangerous corners, but the Braves were always under control. After several missed opportunities the Tigers began to create scoring chances of their own. When halftime rolled around though the score was still tied at zero.

That changed just under eight minutes into the second half when Aiden Fader beat a Twinsburg defender in the box, fired a pass across the face of the goal and Max Grebe flicked it in to give Indian hill a 1-0 lead.

"I've kin of perfected tap in throughout the season, so I knew I was going to put it away," Grebe said. "It feels great. Before the game I thought to myself I was going to score, so I had to make it come true."

After the goal the Braves, hungry for another goal, were pressing in the Tigers' half of the field. After a free kick, a corner kick and a few shot opportunities on ricochet's the Tigers settled back down and started to control possession a little better.

Keelin Fuentes had a chance with the ball right near the goal, but could not get a shot off while being hounded by the Braves' defense. Alec Utrup had another opportunity a few minutes later but had the ball poked away in the box.

With about 15 minutes left it was Twinsburg pressing in the Braves' half of the field. The Tigers still had a hard time getting a shot off around the Indian Hill defense.

"I think it always gets frantic toward the end. This game was going to pose a lot more problems than we see in other games, but we've worked all year at making sure we keep it clean in the back," Indian Hill's Brady Evans said. "We certainly felt that pressure, but we knew it was something we had seen before, so we felt very confident towards the end of the game , just sticking it out."