DIVISION II BOYS

DeSales 11, Cincinnati Mariemont 6 

The “jinx” is over for the DeSales boys team.

After winning state championships in both 2012 and 2018, the Stallions lost in state semifinals the next season.

The defending Division II state champions entered their latest state semifinal matchup determined not to endure the same fate the year after winning a title.

In a state semifinal Wednesday at Chaminade Julienne, DeSales scored seven consecutive second-half goals and went on to beat Mariemont 11-6 to advance to the state final at 1 p.m. June 3 against Olmsted Falls at Historic Crew Stadium.

“Up until this year, it’s always been kind of a jink where we’d win the state championship and then get to the final four the next year and lose,” coach Matt Triplet said. “I told the boys at halftime either you can be part of the pattern or you can be part of history, so what do you want to do? Some guys were kind of feeling sorry for themselves for how they played in the first half and I (said) you can feel sorry for yourself and wish you played better tomorrow or you can do it now and suck it up.”

The Stallions, who improved to 19-1, defeated the Warriors 14-8 in a state semifinal last season. 

Warriors goalie Luke Brennaman, who is the son of former Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman, is a three-year starter who helped the team win the 2021 state title and also started last season.

In this year’s matchup against DeSales, Brennaman gave up just four goals over the first three quarters before the Stallions made an adjustment. Brennaman finished with 14 saves.

“We came together as a team at halftime,” junior attacker Jack Jordan said. “We had a great speech and rallied together to get it done. We started changing up our shots a lot. We went low a lot in the first half and got that saved a lot, so we started changing up our placement and got him to move left to right. Shots started falling.”

DeSales made it 3-0 with 7 minutes, 23 seconds left in the first half on a goal by junior goalie Ty Hampton, but the Warriors scored the next three goals and took a 5-4 lead early in the third period.

Consecutive goals by Hampton and Jordan gave DeSales a 6-5 lead early in the fourth quarter and Hampton added two more goals to finish with four overall.

Mariemont finished with a 16-5 record.

“We cleaned up our fundamentals and passing after our first-half passing wasn’t good,” Hampton said. “Once we started getting the ball, (sophomore) Bryce Herrick won the faceoffs and we controlled the second half basically.

“We gave our seniors one more day. We love our seniors and are going to keep fighting for them.”

Olmsted Falls is coming off an 11-5 victory Wednesday over Hunting Valley University School in a state semifinal as it improved to 19-1. 

The Bulldogs competed in Division I a year ago.

“I’ve seen some of their games just out of curiosity,” Triplet said. “They have an attackman, Gavin Moore, who’s pretty good and their faceoff guy, Rocco Conti, is kind of a do-it-all midfielder and a great player. We’ve never played them, they’ve never played us, and they don’t know what it’s like to play southern teams that are in Division II. We’ll see where the chips fall.”