The Washington High School boys’ soccer team is 19-1-1, has only been scored on 11 times in 21 matches, is ranked eighth in the state, has won 13 sectional titles in the last 15 years and has captured seven regional crowns in school history.

To say beating the Hatchets would be deemed nearly impossible may mean that New Albany is right where it wants to be.

The Bulldogs will face Washington on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the first round of the Evansville Semistate at Evansville Central. With a win, New Albany would face the winner of the Columbus North-Evansville Central matchup at 6 p.m. on the same day for the right to go to the state finals.

Since ending the regular season with a 4-10-1 mark, New Albany has gone on revenge run to win sectional and regional titles.

Four of New Albany’s five postseason wins in the tournament have come against teams that had beaten the Bulldogs in the regular season. New Albany opened with a win over Corydon in sectional play, beat Floyd Central — which had beaten it 4-0 in the regular season — to win the sectional championship. Then at regional, New Albany topped Jeffersonville in the semifinals before it beat Seymour — which had beaten them 6-0 during the season — for the regional title on Monday.

The case could be made that New Albany hasn’t been expected to win a single game it entered during the playoff run.

Now, New Albany faces arguably the best team it has faced all season.

“I’ll say the pressure’s probably on (Washington),” New Albany coach Ben Vigar said. “They’re expected to win and we’re playing loose.”

Getting to Saturday’s semistate hasn’t been a matter of the Bulldogs playing above their heads, Vigar said. The Bulldogs’ first-year head coach expected his team to play the way it has playing during its tournament run all season.

It just took the thought of the season coming to a close to get them to gel.

“We have some talent on this team,” he said. “They’ve just recently come together. They’re playing as a team and they’re getting it done.”

“I think they team has fought hard, because we know if we lose, we’re done,” senior Nathan Blair said. “We know we have to play (well) to win.”

“The whole season we’ve been thinking that we’re better than this,” sophomore Nate Blackwell added. “We knew when it was time, we would step it up. We’ve had the talent all year, but we (hadn’t) been playing as well. Now, we’re doing better. I knew we had the players, it was just the attitude we needed to work on.”

The biggest move strategically has been Vigar’s decision to switch from a standard four-back defense to sweeper-stopper defense. Remarkably, the switch has produced four straight shutout victories.

In the new defense, the sweeper becomes the most vital role. Blackwell has played that role to perfection.

“We put Nate back at sweep and that really helped us out a lot,” New Albany goalkeeper Danny Hartman said. “He has saved three times (or) four times as many goals as I have. He’s stopped (scoring chances) before they’ve gotten to me. I’m just the last line of defense.”

“Nick’s a sophomore, but he’s been really solid back there. He’s done a great job,” Vigar said.

Like Hartman, who was victorious in shoot-out wins over Floyd Central and Seymour, Blackwell won’t accept the credit for the shutout streak.

“Michael Christman and Brandon McLaughlin have done a phenomenal job,” Blackwell said of the New Albany defensemen. “Our wing defenders – Denton White, Jordan Blessinger and Drew Hirsch – have all stepped up and done their jobs perfectly. And it’s everybody – not just our defense – everybody’s helping out.”

Although it may have seemed like a pipe dream when they were six games below .500, the Bulldogs are exactly where they expected to be when the season started.

“We wanted to make it to semistate. That was our goal the whole year,” Blackwell said. “We all have the confidence and have been working hard all year. Now, we’ve done it and we’ve proved people wrong who have been writing us off all year long.”

Now that New Albany has reached that goal, continuing to play strong defense will be the key to advancing further, Blackwell said.

“Going into this game, we have to not let them score at all and keep that perfect record going,” he said. “If we can’t score on them, we’ll take it to the shoot out and try to get them there. We’re going to try to get a goal, contain them and try to get to the semistate finals.”