Milford is the early pacesetter among Clermont County’s varsity boys cross country teams. New Richmond’s Eric Finan has been the outstanding individual harrier. All county teams are gearing toward improvement and season-closing honors.

Batavia has a team of three juniors and two sophomores. The top efforts have been turned in by juniors Chad Snell and Tyler Hensley and sophomore Nathan Braswell.

We’re focusing on improving our times,” said first-year Bulldog coach Beth Onecca. “I want to start a running group during the off-season.”

Bethel-Tate coach Jay Moore is building for the future. There’s not enough out for the team so this year we’re focusing on individual efforts. We have a junior high team this year and it will help us out a lot for the future of the program.”

Freshman Louie Schaljo tops the Tigers. The Southern Buckeye Conference’s top distance man in junior high a year ago is running at 17-minutes, 56-seconds over the 3.1-mile distance this year. Seniors Danny Little and Adam Dean “ran a lot this summer” and have shown good improvement. Little’s best time is 18:30 and Dunn’s 20:40.

Felicity, too, has a young club. “We’re learning for the experience this year as we develop,” said coach Brian Binion. “I’m excited to see how well we’ll do.”

The Cardinals in the forefront have been junior Andrew Gabelman, back after a year’s absence, and sophomores Justin Keltch and Matthew Sharp.

Glen Este coach Angie Carson is excited about her charges. “We have a good future. We’re young, but we’re solid. I’m happy with how we did at Loveland.” The Trojans consist of one junior and the remainder are sophomores and freshmen.

Sophomores CJ Pickelheimer, Daniel Wulker, and Tony Scharf have put GE through its paces. Pickelheimer’s best time is 17:42, Wulker’s 18:02, and Scharf’s 19:43.

Goshen coach Ron Edwards is enthusiastic about the Warriors. “We have good competition among the team. We’re getting progressively better.”

The Red and Gray lost five of their first seven distancemen from a year ago. “We’re not rebuilding; we’re reloading.” Senior Robert Romeo has the best time at 18:11. Edwards expects stellar efforts from seniors Josh Shouse and Cody Monk (first-year runner), sophomore Darren Garrett, and freshman Andrew Smith.

Five Clermont County teams competed in the Third Annual Loveland Invitational. The host Tigers won the 11-team event that took place at Grailville. Loveland had 26 points. Milford led the way for the county by finishing second with 62 points, Glen Este was fifth with 174, Amelia, sixth, 178, Goshen, eighth, 189, and New Richmond, 10th, 248.

Finan, a senior, was the individual champion finishing the 3.1-mile course in 16:33. Nathan Bullock of Milford was seventh in 17:27 and CJ Pickelheimer of GE was 10th in 17:42. Rounding out the top 20 placers from Clermont County were Matt Belliston of Milford (11) 17:45, Robbie Dearhammer of Milford (13) 17:47, Adam Sprague of Amelia (14) 17:50, Aaron Ball of Milford (15) 17:56, Matt Bayman of Milford (16) 18:02, and Josh Herrel of Amelia (17) 18:05.

The 11-team Western Brown Invitational was won by Georgetown with 68 points. Goshen was fifth with 126, Glen Este, sixth, 163, and Felicity, 10th, 285. Batavia and Bethel-Tate did not field a complete five-man team.

Pickelheimer of GE paced the Clermont countians with his 18:27 over the 3.1-mile course. Rounding out the top twenty were Schaljo of Bethel (8) 18:41; Wulker of GE (9) 18:51; Romeo of Goshen (10) 18:58; and Monk (18) of Goshen 19:28.

The Fairfield Brian Plasman Invitational took place at Harbin Park. Milford was the Clermont County pacesetter with its second place finish in the 19-team field. The Eagles totalled 93 points; Sycamore was the victor with 82 points. Glen Este was 11th with 219 and New Richmond was 15th with 399.

Finan of New Richmond was second overall with a time of 16: 15.62. Bullock of Milford was 10th in 17:36.6.

The FinishTiming.com Invitational took place at Wilmington College. Goshen paced Clermont County’s boys teams with 223 points for seventh place; Bethel-Tate was 11th with 310. LaSalle won the 17-team event with a perfect score of 15 points (its five runners finished one-through-five).

Bethel-Tate was 27th among a total of 33 teams at the Running Spot Ohio Classic that took place at Liberty Park in Hillsboro.