Last season Fenwick High School girls soccer coach Tom McEwan had a lot of people telling him it was the Falcons’ year.

And, with 12 seniors, he believed they could be correct.

“Last year we expected to be here,” McEwan said as he prepared his top-ranked squad for the Division III state title game with Ontario today at noon at Crew Stadium. “Then, you get that cold water thrown on you.”

As surprising as the cold water was (an overtime loss to Summit Country Day in the state semifinals), it is this year which has caught him off guard.

“We only have two returning starters and are a fairly young team,” McEwan said of his 18-1-3 squad. “It was the clichéd rebuilding year. I told people that if we went 8-8 I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Then, Fenwick beat Summit 1-0 early in the regular season and McEwan learned something about his squad.

“They are a lot like the 2008 team,” McEwan said. “They were like, let us take care of things and we will be fine. It is hard as a coach to do that, but you get to the point where it is like, ‘OK, I believe you.’”

Fenwick will not have school today so the students and staff can go support the team, adding to the atmosphere of playing in a professional soccer stadium on a much larger field for a state title against the fifth-ranked team in the state.

The wider field plays into one of the strengths for the Falcons and Meghan Blank, a University of Dayton recruit.

“We are confident we are fit beyond description and playing on a bigger field will allow us to spread the field out more,” McEwan said. “That is an advantage to us and allows us to play to our strength.”

How it affects Ontario, McEwan doesn’t know. The Falcons have a cone of silence about the opponent around them.

“They don’t want to know anything about who we are playing,” McEwan said. “They don’t want scouting reports or anything, they just want to go out and take care of business. As a coach, I would like to know more, but you will no more know if it is a preseason scrimmage or the state title game. The girls play the same way, they are laid back, relaxed and their focus is razor sharp.”