By Lucas Sullivan for Cox News Service

DUBLIN | One more down, one left standing in the way of Greeneview's quest for a state title.

The undefeated Rams continued their march through the best Division III boys soccer teams in the state, this time beating Worthington Christian 2-1 in the state semifinals at Dublin Scioto High School on Tuesday night, extending their winning streak to 22 straight games.

The top-ranked Rams will play Youngstown Cardinal Mooney for the school's first state title in any sport on Friday at 3 p.m. at Crew Stadium in Columbus. Mooney outlasted Kidron Central Christian by the same 2-1 count on Tuesday night.

"What can I say, this is unbelievable," said Greeneview coach Bob Eakins, who actually stepped down at the end of last season, but decided to coach the team after no one applied for the job. "All the credit goes to these kids. They did it all."

And again it was Ryan Hartman coming up big for Greeneview, scoring both goals to give him 36 on the season and eight in his last six tournament games.

"He's a great player with a tremendous sense for the field," Warriors coach Dwayne Smith said. "He seems to be wherever the ball is and makes the plays when he needs to."

Eakins said that's just Hartman, being Hartman.

"He takes it upon himself to be everywhere," he said. "He is just so fast and has great stamina, so he can do that."

The Rams needed him against the Warriors (13-5-2) Tuesday night. After his second goal put Greeneview up 2-1 with 32:15 left to play, Hartman hung back as a gap stopper to help out a defense playing without starting goalkeeper Martin Ellis.

Ellis went down less than seven minutes into the second half after a Warrior slid into the right side of his rib cage. Officials tried to give the senior goalie as much time as he needed to get back up, but Ellis had to helped off the field by athletic trainers.

It didn't faze the Rams as much as the Warriors might have hoped, though.

"We had full faith in our backup goalie Andrew Frye," senior defender Jared Randall said. "He practices just as hard as Martin does."

Frye didn't face an uncontested shot during his 20 minutes in goal and when Ellis — who was begging Eakins to come back in the game by flopping down on the field to prove he was OK — came back in with just over 13 minutes left in the game, the crowd went crazy.

"As soon as I saw him flop on the ground and bounce right back up without tears in his eyes, I knew he was OK," Eakins said. "There wasn't a crew in the world that was going to score a goal against them when he came back out."

Ellis did have to wear a pad, wrapped in bandages, on his ribs where he had been injured. But thanks to Randall, junior defender Zach Davidson and senior Luke Benton, he didn't have too much to worry about the rest of the way.

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