By Garth Shanklin
Sports Editor
For the third straight year, a Clermont County athlete brought home an OHSAA title, while another Clermont County team won a national championship for the second time in as many years. It’s time to recap another busy year in the county.
10. Final fall season for the current ECC
While there are still winter and spring sports to go, the next time Clermont County’s Eastern Cincinnati Conference teams prepare for the fall, the league will look a lot different. Withrow is exiting the league in the fall of 2020 for the Cincinnati Metro Athletic Conference, while Little Miami, Lebanon and Winton Woods will join to bring the total number of members up to 10.
9. Two locals chosen in MLB Draft
A pair of kids from Clermont County saw their dreams come true over the summer, as their names were announced in the 2019 MLB Draft.
Glen Este grad Peyton Burdick went in the third round to the Miami Marlins and enjoyed a rousing summer campaign, finishing with a .308/.407/.542 slash line across two levels of minor league play. Burdick was named the Midwest League player of the month in August, having batted .337 with six home runs and 30 RBI.
New Richmond alumni Zade Richardson was a 22nd-round choice of the St. Louis Cardinals in June. Richardson batted .191 with a home run and four runs batted in for the Gulf Coast League Cardinals.
8. Batavia opens new football facility
With the passing of a levy last year, Batavia’s football field received a major upgrade over the summer, as a new entrance, concession area/restroom and a turf field were installed prior to the Bulldogs season-opener against Williamsburg in August.
The construction didn’t stop there. A new press box was built on the visitor’s side of the field, where it will also serve as a press box for the baseball and softball fields along with a restroom and concession stand.
The baseball and softball fields themselves got a makeover as well, as they too are now covered in turf. The facility upgrades also added bullpens to both fields.
7. US Rowing returns to Bethel’s Harsha Lake
Roughly 1,800 rowers from across the United States, Canada and Australia competed in Bethel this past July as the US Rowing National Championships returned to the area after a brief absence.
Competitors were welcomed to the beach with several improvements, including a new start platform, along with a new judges tower, and a videoboard at the finish line.
The event went smoothly, despite the best efforts of Mother Nature. Heavy rains before the event left the entire pavilion area underwater with just over a week to go before the races began.
Over 300 volunteers filled a total of 500 timeslots to help the race go off without a hitch.
6. Batavia’s Nate Watson battles, beats cancer
Batavia’s Nate Watson graduated in May, but his impact on the community will last far beyond that. Watson was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in late 2018, and the school hosted ‘Win for Watson’ on Friday, February 1.
The school raised over $9,000 for the Watson family at the game, with other area schools holding fundraisers of their own later in the year.
On May 13, Watson announced via Twitter that his last PET scan showed no sign of cancer.
5. Williamsburg girls continue domination of National Division
To say 2019 was a successful year for the Williamsburg Lady Wildcats is an understatement.
In February, Williamsburg’s girls basketball team capped off a 12-0 run through the National Division with a 69-51 win over Blanchester.
That same month, the Lady Wildcats’ bowling team also clinched the National Division title.
Back in the spring, Williamsburg’s softball team finished unbeaten in league play and won yet another league title, the team’s fourth straight.
A few weeks later, Williamsburg brought home another girls championship, as the track and field team won the league crown by over 60 points. I
ndividually, Williamsburg boasted champions in the pole vault (Grace Tigert), high jump (Emery Kellerman), long jump (Autumn Gregory), discus (Willow Kenneda), and both hurdle events (Lily Williford won the 100-meter hurdle race, while Laurin Ellis won the 300-meter event). Williamsburg’s 400 and 800-meter relay teams also won league crowns.
In the fall, the Lady Wildcats earned team championships in both volleyball and soccer, finishing with unbeaten records in both sports (though the soccer team did have one tie).
4. Locals place at state tournaments
Several Clermont County athletes posted strong showings at state championships this past year.
Outside of West Clermont’s Morgan Southall (who we’ll get to shortly), three Clermont County swimmers competed at the state meet in Canton in late February.
Williamsburg’s Jonah Karschnik placed 9th in the 2000-yard freestyle and 10th in the 100-yard butterfly. Bethel-Tate’s Tommie and Ian McQueary competed in the 100-yard breaststroke, with the former placing 17th. The latter finished 21st.
On March 2, Clermont Northeastern’s Tommy Averwater placed 36th in the state Division II bowling championships at Wayne Webb’s Columbus Bowl.
Later that same month, three Clermont County wrestlers earned a spot on the state podium, led by Goshen’s Josh Dunn. Dunn placed third in the Division II 120-pound class, with his older brother Zach Dunn placing fifth at 160.
Batavia’s Brandon Sauter capped off his freshman season with a seventh-place finish at 106 pounds.
Sauter and Josh Dunn both could make this column again next year, as they are both on the mat again in this season.
Another Clermont Athlete found a spot on the podium in the spring, as New Richmond’s Jenna Burns placed fifth in the Division III 3200-meter run. Burns also placed ninth in the 1600-meter event.
3. Felicity softball wins district championship
This past May, the Felicity-Franklin girls softball team completed quite the comeback.
The squad finished the 2017 campaign 2-15 overall and 1-9 in Southern Buckeye Athletic and Academic Conference play.
In 2019, Felicity rolled to a district championship with a 4-1 win over Triad on Saturday, May 18 in Mason.
It wasn’t an easy win. Felicity fell behind 1-0 early on a pair of singles and a throwing error. The Lady Cardinals held Triad without a hit the rest of the game to complete the comeback.
The victory sent the Lady Cardinals to the regional semifinal for the first time since 2014. The Lady Cardinals fell to top-ranked Minster in a 15-6 slugfest. Minster would fall to eventual state runner-up Mechanicsburg in the regional final three days later.
T1. UCC Women’s Soccer team wins another national title; West Clermont’s Morgan Southall wins state diving title
Which is bigger: the second straight national championship for a program that didn’t exist five years ago, or the first-ever state championship for a school that wasn’t around three years ago? I can’t decide, so there’s a tie at the top.
Let’s start with Southall. Back in February, the West Clermont senior placed first in the Division I state diving championship, collecting a total score of 479.55. Gahanna Lincoln’s Maycey Vieta finished second with a 474.40 mark, a number Southall knew she had to beat to win the title.
“I knew going into the last dive that her last dive was a big one,” Southall told The Sun in March. “I knew there was a chance that she was going to smash it and there would be no chance I could get her. She did a really good dive.”
Waiting for the results was a difficult task for Southall, who had an understandable reaction once the numbers were finalized.
“I cried,” Southall said. “Immediately. It felt like forever. I got out of the pool and I was waiting, it felt like forever.”
Southall made sure to credit her teammates for their role in her victory.
“They’re my family,” Southall said. “I couldn’t have done it without them. A lot of the times when you get into championship season, that’s when teams sort of dissipate. That’s when it can get pretty lonely. That’s how it has been in the past, and that’s really hard. Being so focused can be overwhelming. Being able to have them stick with me, come up there and cheer me on, give me an outlet to relax and have fun with during the meet, was so crucial. I don’t think it would have been the same if they weren’t there.”
That family theme is also big for the University of Cincinnati – Clermont women’s soccer team, which brought home a second consecutive USCAA Division II title in November.
The Cougars entered 2019 with high expectations following a championship in 2018, and this year’s team did not disappoint. UC Clermont earned the top overall seed in the tournament and won both games of pool play 6-2.
In the championship contest, the Cougars scored once in the 53rd minute and again in the 56th to clinch the championship.
“It feels good,” head coach Blaine Callahan told The Sun. “The girls worked really hard, and they played up to a high level during the tournament. I’m proud of them.”
Callahan added that he hoped the win upped the profile of UC Clermont soccer in the Cincinnati area.
“It grows every year, and I’m hoping it continues to grow,” Callahan said. “I was talking to a local director of coaching the other day, and he said that UC Clermont women’s soccer was the best-kept secret in Cincinnati. We don’t want it to be a secret, we want people to come out and have fun.”