“Put it on me,” Parr said to them. “Just make yours, and I’ll come up big. I’ll save two.”
Moments later, he did exactly that.
After Badin and Turpin battled it out for 110 minutes in a 1-1 tie, Parr knocked away the Spartans’ final penalty kick to give the Rams a Division III regional championship and their first berth to the state semifinals in school history.
“It’s a dream,” said Parr, who batted away a penalty kick to beat Carroll in the regional semifinals on Wednesday. “You look at any high school senior — you say, what do you want to do when you play soccer? Go to state. And for us having the opportunity to do that, first time in program history, it feels like no other feeling I’ve ever felt before.”
Parr’s fearless mentality has been the heartbeat of Badin’s postseason run. The Rams (17-3-3) have survived back-to-back extra-time thrillers, relying on Parr’s ability to read shooters and command the box under pressure.
And for Parr, the state semifinal berth is the realization of a dream shared by every young player who’s ever worn Badin green.
“I don’t really want to go to school Monday,” Parr said with a grin, “but it feels good when all those guys are patting you on the back.”
“You know what, we talked to Cole all year,” Badin coach Eric Hickey chimed in. “Cole all year was getting these shutouts, and everybody would give him grief saying, ‘You didn’t even make a save.’ And I kept telling him, we’re gonna need you. Your time’s coming.
“I said, enjoy this luxury right now, but your time’s coming. And it came in the last two games. I think he’s one of the best goalies in Southwest Ohio — probably one of the best in the state — and he’s proving it every time we come out here now.”
“His play tonight — we were undersized, they’re throwing bodies in there — and he just came up big time after time after time. He was amazing the other night. I thought he was even better tonight.”
Badin will face Bishop Watterson in a Division III state semifinal at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Wright State University.
Coach saw this coming
Hickey had been planting the seed for this moment since summer workouts.
“At the beginning of June, I kept talking about this,” the coach said. “We could be here. And they didn’t believe me. They do believe me now.”
That belief was tested against Turpin. The Rams were shorthanded, battered and exhausted — but never broken.
Dylan Hartman sent a rocket of a shot to the top-left part of the net to give Badin a 1-0 lead with 18:29 left in the first half.
Turpin scored with 9:27 left to play, and the game remained tied at 1-1 the remainder of regulation and two overtime periods.
“They never wavered tonight,” Hickey said. “We were down a couple guys, another guy got a concussion, guys were cramping. They just kept playing. They never wavered that they were going to win the game.”
Hickey said he saw it in their faces before overtime even began.
“I looked in their eyes at the beginning of overtime — we’re tired, we’re hurt, stuff’s going against us — and they were like, ‘We got this.’ I mean, it was never… they just don’t think they’re gonna lose.”
The Rams had every excuse to fold, too. They were without two of their best goal scorers — senior Joe Jung and sophomore Charlie Hall who were carded in the regional semifinal — and several players were battling through pain.
Jung will not be back for the state semifinal because of a red card against Carroll. Hall will be able to play since he was carded a double-yellow.
“Like I said, it’s adversity — and we’re used to that," Parr said.
Badin won the shootout Sunday night 4-3, which sent its fanbase into a frenzy.
“I didn’t think we’d be here, but now that we are, I can see from day one this is what we’ve been working toward,” Parr said.
Hickey echoed that sentiment.
“I hear a couple of the guys saying, ‘We don’t want to lose it for the seniors.’ We just don’t want to lose it,” Hickey said. ”As a group, we want to represent our school. We want to represent the community. We want to represent the program. But more importantly, we were 16 dudes united in June, and we’re still 16 dudes united now.”
Seasoned by the gauntlet
Badin’s journey has been forged through a schedule that hardened the Rams for moments like this.
“If you look at the scores, Turpin hasn’t had to go a full 80 — and they just had to go a full 110,” Hickey said. “They’re not used to that. We are. We did that with Monroe, we did it with Carroll, we did it with Tipp.
“We’re used to this, so it doesn’t faze us. We’re ready to go. We cramp, and we stand up, we stretch, and we go, and we punch one in. The gauntlet is everything we’re used to.”
And that gauntlet, Parr said, starts with the Greater Catholic League Coed Division.
“The GCL is nothing to laugh at,” Parr said. “Every team but one made it to the third round. The GCL is brutal, man. We fight through it. We’d never beaten Carroll — got that done. I don’t know how many times we’ve played Turpin — can’t think it’s that many — but we just come out and fight.”
Badin’s run isn’t over — not in the minds of its players or their fiery head coach.
“We’re going to the state Final Four, and our goal is to bring it home,” Hickey said. “Like I said, the Rams are going to state, and hell’s coming with us. So whoever wants to get in their way, good luck.
“Anybody who wants to play us, good luck,” Hickey repeated. “Because we’re coming, and we don’t think we’re gonna lose to anybody.”
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