By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

It’s do-or-die time for local soccer teams as they enter into the postseason where each game could be their last. Coming off of solid regular seasons, however, the Batavia Bulldogs, Amelia Lady Barons and Milford Lady Eagles seem to be primed to make a strong postseason run.

Starting with the boys’ sectional tournament, the Batavia Bulldogs enter their bracket as a No. 6 seed where they will face conference opponent Norwood on Tuesday night.

Finishing the season at 8-8 overall and 7-1 in the Southern Buckeye Conference National Division, the Bulldogs took a share of the division crown along with Georgetown, which head coach Kevin Scheel thinks is key to upholding the Batavia name.

“(Getting a share of the league title) meant a lot,” Scheel said. “Batavia has had a strong tradition of winning league. We have established ourselves as one of the top programs and that’s a tradition we take pride in.”

Scheel went on to say that although his team has battled some injuries, everyone is healthy for their first-round game against Norwood.

“When I looked at the draw, there were two matchups that I liked,” Scheel said. “I chose to go with Norwood first and then we would have McNick should we win against Norwood. McNick will be a very tough battle as we did not get a good result the first time around, but a few injuries happened during that game and we didn’t respond well. It will definitely be a much closer game, but also one of our harder battles.”

On the girls’ side of things, Amelia and Batavia are coming in off of respective Southern Buckeye Conference Division championships while Milford is coming into the tournament off of an Eastern Cincinnati Conference championship.

Amelia went unbeaten through their conference schedule and only lost two games all season.

While the Lady Barons have stepped it up from a bit of a slow start that saw the team draw three of their first four games, they will be in for a tough matchup if they defeat Hamilton in their first-round game as No.2-seeded Ursuline awaits.

The Lady Bulldogs also had a solid regular season going 10-0 in conference and 15-1 overall. The solid season garnered Batavia a four-seed and a possible second-round matchup with No. 3 seed Ross.

To play Ross, the Lady Bulldogs would have had to defeat SBC rival Bethel-Tate on Oct. 17. Batavia won the pair’s only matchup on Sept. 25 5-1.

The Lady Eagles are heading into postseason play with one of the best teams in the city after going 5-0-1 in the inaugural season of the ECC. Also a No. 4 seed, Milford will play the winner of St. Ursula and Middletown on Saturday, Oct. 20.

Despite losing some key players from a team that made a deep tournament run last year, the Lady Eagles seemed to have gelled at the right time and are looking to duplicate last season’s success.

Among other Clermont County teams in the sectional tournament, two boys teams lost on Monday, Oct. 15, Glen Este and Amelia.

On the girls’ side, the Glen Este Lady Trojans fell in their first-round matchup against Colerain.

At the time of printing, many teams will have played their first round games already. To find out the most up-to-date scores, be sure to follow @ClerSunSports on Twitter and check the scoreboard page on clermontsun.com.

If you are wondering what your team’s bracket looks like, you can log onto the Southwest District Athletic Board’s website where they have the postseason schedules for all sports. Their website is swdab.org.