By RICHARD TORRES
For The Reporter
NOBLESVILLE – As soon as the ball left senior Kaydence Fleck’s right foot in the 67th minute on Saturday, Meredith Tippner raised both arms.
Finding Fleck open in the box while the top-ranked Hamilton Southeastern Royals (15-1-3) shifted over to swarm Tippner, a left-footed cross pass by the Noblesville senior was the knockout blow the second-ranked Millers needed during the Class 3A Sectional 8 championship.
Noblesville goalkeeper Bella Wyatt made nine saves during the championship game. (Julie Brown)
In what Noblesville head coach Mike Brady coined a heavyweight bout between two of the nation’s top girls’ soccer programs, the difference was spacing, and the defending state champion Millers (15-0-2) found just enough to win their sixth straight sectional title, 1-0.
“It honestly started with the combination we’d been looking for. Connect, connect, connect, you get me on the run facing forward, I get into space, and we’d been asking to get people in the box, crash, crash, crash,” Tippner said. “That’s what the Millers do, and I’m so proud of us.”
The fifth sectional final meeting between HSE and Noblesville since 2016 – and ninth straight year the programs have clashed in the postseason – lived up to the hype.
In 2020, the Millers won 2-1 in the sectional finals. In 2019, Noblesville won 3-1 in the sectional championship.
In 2017, a 3-2 regular-season victory by the Millers led to a 1-0 sectional final victory. The year prior, Noblesville swept both 2016 meetings with a 1-0 win in the finals.
HSE, which ranked No. 1 in the nation this season, beat Noblesville 3-2 in the regular season last year, the first time since 2014, and came back to tie 1-1 on Aug. 31 this fall.
However, in the past three postseason meetings, the Millers have prevailed twice in the semifinals and in the quarterfinals by margins of one goal.
Saturday’s win made it four for the Millers, who are ranked third in the nation.
“That’s what a great team does. They play a full 80 minutes. We did. We did the full 80, and we don’t want anyone else at keeper spot protecting our goal. Again, our defense just staying disciplined,” Tippner said. “I think everyone showed up to play, and that’s all you can ask.”
Ohio University commit Bella Wyatt was up to the task in goal, finishing with nine saves, as HSE peppered her to equalize.
During their regular-season game, the Millers struck first, 1-0, off an Atley Pittman free-kick goal in the 71st minute, but the Royals rallied back and tied it up in the 77th minute.
In the rematch, the same scenario nearly replayed itself.
Southeastern’s Gracie Pyle (right) defends while Noblesville’s Ashlyn McNitt takes control of the ball. (Julie Brown)
HSE attacked. A pair of shots hit off the crossbar in the final two minutes, including a free-kick liner by junior Blair Satterfield and a header by junior Sloane May, a Michigan recruit, with 55 seconds remaining.
“The last couple of minutes are obviously always the hardest. They’ve been a good team, scoring in the last two minutes. They probably went on a five-game streak of scoring in the last two minutes, so I had to focus, keep my head down and keep working,” Wyatt said.
“We have the mentality of you have to give everything. The other teams obviously understand it, but they don’t understand it as well because we’ve been there before. We know what we have to put in to get there.”
The Millers have won four state titles in the past five years, and outscored Anderson and Mt. Vernon 15-1 this week to reach the sectional final at the Hallmark Orthodontics Soccer Complex.
Despite their recent success, the Millers entered the game as the underdog in the rankings.
“We just want to be the best team we can be, and I thought we took a big step that way today, and we had to be because that’s a really good soccer team that we beat today. That’s a really good soccer team that left it on the field,” said Millers head coach Mike Brady, who netted career win No. 307. “Again, we’ve been here before, so we don’t really think in terms of what our ranking is. We have at this point one goal, and we took a step toward that today.”
Fleck wasn’t worried about anything other than connecting, or as Brady explained: cool, calm and collected spelled with Ks.
“Meredith had an amazing cross, and I felt like I had a lot of space, so I had enough time to get it under control and I put it where I needed it,” Fleck said. “I just knew if I hit it, it probably was not going to go in, so I had to get that good touch, and I stay composed.”
From there, the Noblesville defense held for 13 minutes in arguably the state’s toughest sectional tournament field.
“We had what it took this year, so the simple answer is the opportunities that we have just need to go into the back of the net instead of an almost post. Did we hit the post six times in this game? … there’s the difference,” HSE head coach Greg Davidson said. “The better team did not win today. We are a better team than them. Congratulations that they get to move on, but I’m devastated for my team that we’re not moving on because we’re better than Noblesville.”
HSE hasn’t won a sectional title since 2012, while the Millers have netted eight in that time and 15 in program history overall.
“We needed that goal. Meredith, a few minutes before than was trying to do a little too much even for her. We got her off the field. She understood that she wasn’t going to do it by herself. The next time she got the ball, she laid it off, and Kaydence Fleck showed all the poise,” Brady said.
“Again, they just fought. That’s this team. It would have been easy to let them back in. We knew they were going to fight, and boy did they fight all the way until the end.”
Nice coach you have at hse, lots of class.