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HAMILTON — Milestone wins typically don’t come this early in the season, but the Hamilton High School boys soccer players will take them whenever and wherever they can.
Big Blue surrendered a tying goal with just 9 minutes and 51 seconds left in Tuesday night’s match against Princeton, but senior Jordan Weislogel answered 80 seconds later to lift HHS to a 2-1 victory at Schwarm Stadium.
It was Big Blue’s first Greater Miami Conference win since 2007, and their first league win against someone other than Middletown in more than 10 years.
“This is huge,” HHS coach Abraham Harris said after watching his team improve to 3-1-2 overall and 1-0 in the GMC.
“When (Princeton) got that equalizing goal, I thought ‘Here we go, another tie,’ ” Harris continued. “But our guys fought back and got it. They showed a lot of heart.”
Neither team scored in the first 58 minutes, although both squads had some great chances. The Vikings (1-2-1, 0-1 GMC) hit the post once, while Big Blue missed one from point-blank range and few others from not that far away.
But midway through the second half, senior Dustin Ward made a run down the right sideline and centered a pass to junior Cabral Christian, who chipped it over the head of Princeton goalkeeper Cory Wright for a 1-0 lead.
“(Ward) played it over the top to me and I was one-on-one with the goalkeeper,” Christian said. “He came off his line and made himself big, so I had to lift it over him.”
The lead held up for a little more than 11 minutes before Princeton’s Alton Reisen ripped a left-footed shot into the net from about 20 yards out.
But Hamilton came right back when Jonathan Fox sent a reverse, high-arching kick behind the Princeton defense, and Weislogel was the first to get to it.
“I saw the ball and I took flight and went hard,” Weislogel said. “I charged the ball and took it out of the air, and then as I was falling down I touched it into the corner.”
Princeton threatened a few more times in the final eight minutes, but Big Blue keeper Jake Binegar (11 saves) and the rest of the Hamilton defense held off the Vikings for the historic win.
“We didn’t win a game in the GMC last year and we lost three good seniors, so people thought we weren’t going to do anything this year,” Ward said. “But we’re gonna prove them wrong. We’re going to take it to every team.”
Next up for Big Blue is a road game at Colerain on Thursday.
“That was a close one we had with them last year (2-0 loss),” Harris said. “Colerain is very strong this year. If we were to go in and win that, it would say a lot about our team.”
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ontact this reporter at (513) 820-2193 or jmorrison@coxohio.com.
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