Milford sophomore outfielder Hannah Huffer turns on a pitch during Monday, May 5’s Eastern Cincinnati Conference tilt with Glen Este.

Milford sophomore outfielder Hannah Huffer turns on a pitch during Monday, May 5’s Eastern Cincinnati Conference tilt with Glen Este.
By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

A funny thing happens when Milford High School baseball players put on their school’s white and red uniform: they usually compete for a league title.

The boys’ squad captured a piece of the Eastern Cincinnati Conference crown for the second consecutive year, making the league title their fifth in the last seven seasons.

“I think the consistency of the program is something to be proud of,” head coach Tom Kilgore said. “We’ve set the sights that once we left the GMC (in 2007) that were going into a different conference format — starting with the FAVC and now evolving into the ECC — that we wanted to be the team to beat. We wanted to be a team that if you were going to win a conference championship, you would have to go through Milford.

“Winning five of the last seven, I think that we’ve established that we are one of the better teams in the ECC. That’s the attitude and confidence that we want to have coming into our conference games.”

The winning attitude has become contagious and the girls’ softball team got in on the action, emerging from a hotly contested ECC softball race to win the league outright and earn their first-ever league championship.

The final week of the regular season pitted Milford with three conference games in three days, two of which were against longtime rival and the Lady Eagles’ sole competition for the league title, Glen Este.

After falling to the Lady Trojans on Monday, May 5, a win over Loveland on May 6 led to the de facto conference championship game on Wednesday, May 7. The Lady Eagles hosted Glen Este in a game that head coach Christy Gregory said had everything and nothing on the line at the same time.

“Well, it didn’t feel like everything was on the line until the end when we knew we’d won it,” she said. “We have young girls and we don’t want to come out and put a lot of pressure on them because they don’t do well with a lot of pressure placed on them.

“Another part, I think (with them being so young) is that they don’t share that (Milford/Glen Este) rivalry yet. I think that might have helped us a bit. They knew of the rivalry and they were up for the game, but it just doesn’t run that deep for them yet.”

Ironically, the boys’ league championship was won by the Eagles thanks to a pair of wins over Glen Este during that same week. Heading into that final week of the season, Milford, Glen Este, Anderson, Kings and Loveland all had a shot at a piece of the title, but Milford’s pair of wins over the Trojans catapulted the Eagles ahead of their rivals.

An Anderson loss to Loveland on Wednesday, May 6 — the same day Milford beat Glen Este for the second time in three days — tied the Eagles and Anderson atop the table.

Glen Este, Loveland and Kings all finished the season a half-game back and in a three-way tie.

Both Milford teams wrapped up their out-of-conference schedules on the tail end of last week and have set their sights on the sectional tournament.

The Lady Eagles were awarded the No. 3 seed in the Division I bracket and conversely saw many of the mid-seeded teams jump into their bracket to avoid the top two seeds, Mason and Fairfield.

“The draw went well,” Gregory explained. “Getting the No. 3 seed and beating the No. 2 seed the day before (the draw) made us feel good going into the draw. We thought (our seed) could have been anywhere between a three and a six, so to get the three, we were excited.

“But the top-10 teams jumped all over our bracket, which makes our draw much more difficult. We took the bye, and usually, when you’re the three seed you get a gimme game, but we don’t have a gimme game this year.

“We play Oak Hills (on Wednesday, May 14). They put the ball in play a lot and that will put a lot of pressure on our defense.”

The Glen Este girls were awarded the No. 4 seed and won their first-round game over No. 24 Princeton 10-0. They moved on to face Turpin, the 14 seed, on Wednesday, May 14.

As for the baseball Eagles, a No. 10 seed was about right in Coach Kilgore’s mind and if they can take care of business, they’ll earn themselves a rubber match with No. 4 seed Anderson.

“If the draw comes a week earlier, I think we’re down in the 15-16-seed range, but if it comes a week later, playing how we are now, I think we might have been in the 6-7 range,” he said. “I thought a 10 seed was fair, but on the same token, when you’re in the 8-12 slot, you don’t control much of your own destiny (as far as choosing your bracket). You’re at the mercy of who else wants to jump in with you.

“We went in a bracket that we believe we have a chance to win two games and get to a sectional final rematch with Anderson, but there were a number of good teams that hopped in with us.”

The Eagles faced No. 15 Sycamore on Tuesday, May 13 and if they won, they will play Lebanon or Colerain on Thursday, May 15.

Glen Este garnered the No. 8 seed and faced Little Miami on May 13. A win would have advanced the Trojans to a May 15 date with the winner of Oak Hills and Northwest.

For complete brackets and scores, log on to swdab.org and for up-to-the-minute score updates, follow @ClerSunSports on Twitter.