By Chris Chaney
Sports Editor
Returning nine starters, seven of whom were All-Southern Buckeye Conference performers a year ago, the New Richmond Lady Lions were among the favorites to contend for the SBC-American Division title in 2015.
Of course, contending for the league crown and actually winning it are two entirely different beasts, as any of the five schools not named Amelia have come to find out over the past five seasons. The Lady Barons, who rejoined the SBC in 2010, have not only won the league each of the past five years, but they’ve done so without dropping a single match in league play racking up a combined record of 45-0-5.
“The fact that we’ve won five (league championships) in a row, we know that everyone is going to give us their best game,” Amelia head coach Amy Kemmer said before the start of the season. “We know that nothing will be given to us and the teams in the SBC are getting better; the gap is definitely closing.”
The gap closed for good on Aug. 27 as the Lady Lions handed Amelia their first league loss in more than 2,000 days. New Richmond’s strategy relied heavily upon neutralizing what the Lady Barons do best and taking advantage of their opportunities when they presented themselves.
“Amelia’s formation is very heavily midfield-based, so our strategy was to play a little more defensively,” New Richmond head coach Chris Malotke said. “We wanted to take away some of their midfield by matching them up man-to-man and playing a counterattacking style in hopes (of getting) one or two goals.”
The Lady Lions got that goal from senior midfielder Ariel Huber on a penalty kick and were able to hold the potent Lady Barons offense from equalizing. Malotke was quick to praise his defense who kept Amelia from getting many clean looks at the net.
“Outside of their corner kicks, they really only had one halfway decent shot inside the box,” the coach said. “Otherwise, almost all of their shots were from 18 to 25 yards, which I will take every single day because the farther away they shoot, the more reaction time they give the goalie.”
Jazmine Hinkston was the Lady Lions keeper who recorded the clean sheet, New Richmond’s second of the season. The red and black opened the season with a strong 7-0 result over Finneytown and backed that up on Aug. 25 with a 3-1 win over Batavia.
“Getting off to a fast and winning start is always positive for any program,” Malotke said. “We have a motto of ‘believe and achieve’ this year and in part, every year we have the goal of beating Amelia — they’re the big dogs, no one had beaten them before — but you have to take every game individually and every league game is tough, whether you play home or away.”
In the SBC, however, your last league game is only as important as how well you follow it up. The big win over Amelia will only give the Lady Lions a cushion so long as they take care of business the rest of the way. With matches against Norwood, Western Brown and Goshen on the horizon, Malotke said that keeping the solid start on track is New Richmond’s top priority.
“Obviously, we want to finish the first part of the season, as far as league, at 5-0,” he said. “Then we get into the out-of-conference part of our schedule with a mix of some other schools in our (conference) and some stronger non-conference teams, which primarily gets us ready to play the second half of our league season, but also gives us a chance to look at some tournament teams as well come seeding time.”
Should the Lady Lions continue to take care of business, not only could the school’s first league title since, ironically, the year before Amelia joined the SBC, but New Richmond could also receive a strong seed in the Division II sectional draw.