By Jay Morrison for the Hamilton Journal-News

FAIRBORN — The Badin High girls played 80 full minutes of soccer Wednesday night even though the game barely lasted 30.

Unfazed by a strong wind blowing right in their face, the Rams settled things early with four quick goals on the way to a 5-1 win against Columbus Bexley in a Division II state semifinal game at Fairborn High School.

The victory moves Badin (17-3-2) into Saturday’s state championship game at Columbus Crew Stadium at 3 p.m. against unbeaten Doylestown Chippeway (20-0-1).

“Wow What an explosion,” Badin coach Keith Harring said of the four goals his team scored in a span of less than 20 minutes. “That was just impressive, there’s no other way to put it.”

Abby Milillo, Emily Leisge, Heather Rains, Lindsey Smith and Sammi Burton all scored for the Rams, who raised the school’s record to a perfect 5-0 in state semifinal contests while earning Badin’s first trip to the championship game since 2000.

“It hasn’t even dawned on me yet,” said Burton, a junior striker. “I can’t believe it’s finally here.”

“It’s indescribable,” added Leisge, a sophomore defender. “You can’t even put it into words.”

Everything seemingly was working against the Rams prior to the game — their bus was 25 minutes late picking them up, they only had 20 minutes to warm up and they lost the coin toss, which meant they had to go against the whipping wind in the first half.

But Milillo got things turned back in Badin’s favor 12 minutes into the game when she took a crossing pass from Smith and drilled the ball past Bexley keeper Katie Sarvas for a 1-0 lead.

The real killer, however, came five minutes later when Leisge took a pass from Erin Golden and launched a shot that went right through Sarvas’ hands and into the goal for a 2-0 Badin lead with 18:20 left in the first half.

“We had been talking about state for weeks, but after (Leisge’s) goal, we could taste it,” Burton said.

Bexley coach Scott Dempsey, whose team finished 17-4-2 after losing in the state semifinals for the sixth time in the last seven years, said he thought his team packed it in after Leisge’ score, although he didn’t actually word it that way.

“You saw the game, what do you think,” Dempsey said tersely after a reporter posed the question.

“Badin has one heck of a team,” Dempsey added. “If they don’t win state, then Chippewa must have something really special.”

Another dropped ball led to the Rams’ third goal, which was a rebound job at point-blank range by senior striker Heather Rains after Milillo had dusted her defender from a dead stop and fired a shot that Sarvas couldn’t handle.

“They were flying out there,” Harring said. “The speed was just awesome.”

Badin scored its fourth goal with 8:10 left in the first half when Jessica Hammond beat a pair of Bexley defenders in the box before pushing the ball to Smith, who put the ball into the net.

Dempsey pulled Sarvas, a sophomore, out of goal after that and replaced her with senior Brittany Wells, who did a solid job, allowing only a second-half penalty kick by Burton.

Badin keeper Jenny Rosen made three saves and backup Megan Woodrey had one before Bexley freshman Jessica Linger scored with 3:24 left in the game to avoid the shutout.

Saturday will mark the fifth time in school history Badin has played for the state title, but the Rams are 0-4 in their previous trips to the championship game.

They lost 1-0 to Columbus DeSales in a sudden-death shootout in 1995, starting a run of three consecutive trips to the state final. Badin lost 1-0 to Chagrin Falls in ’96, and 2-0 to DeSales in ’97.

The Rams made it back to the title game in 2000 before losing to Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit 4-0.

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