The New Richmond boys and the Bethel-Tate girls won the Early Bird Run on Aug. 20 at Washington Township Park.
The New Richmond boys and the Bethel-Tate girls won the Early Bird Run on Aug. 20 at Washington Township Park.

By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

Area cross country teams got to see for the first time in 2014 how their offseason training would stack up against their competition on Aug. 20 as Felicity-Franklin High School hosted the Early Bird Run at Washington Township Park.

Five Clermont County teams took part with New Richmond and Bethel-Tate taking home respective boys’ and girls’ titles.

The boys’ top-3 mirrored what the Southern Buckeye Conference American Division played out to last season with New Richmond beating out Western Brown and Bethel-Tate.

Batavia notched a fourth-place finish, followed by Sardinia Eastern, host Felicity, Ripley-Union, Goshen and Reading.

Western Brown’s Rick Pride dominated the race, finishing in 17:57, more than 30 seconds ahead of Georgetown’s Jordan Kattine who placed second. From there, Clermont County was well represented as Jackson Coates of Bethel-Tate, Ryan Cooper of Batavia and Bobby Bingham of New Richmond rounded out the top-5.

Despite Bingham coming in as the fifth-place finisher, an even New Richmond squad led the Lions to a 67 point total with none of their top-5 runners finishing outside the top-22. New Richmond edged Western by just two points, largely thanks to Darik Page’s finish.

Other locals who finished in the top-20 include Michael Mason of Goshen at 19:07.79, Bradley Elkins of Felicity at 19:14, Adam Shinkle of Bethel at 19:16, Charlie Spicker of New Richmond at 19:41, Luke Glenn of New Richmond at 19:58, Xavier Hendrix of Batavia at 20:20 and Justin Royer of Bethel at 20:20.23.

The Bethel-Tate girls had an exceptionally strong showing with all seven of their runners finishing in the top 22. New Richmond, not to be out done, placed seven runners in the top-30, but fell to the Lady Tigers on the sixth runner after both teams tallied 46 points through five positions.

Sardinia Eastern’s Alyssa Taylor claimed top honors, running an impressive 21:39.50, just under a minute faster than runner up Taryn Rupp of New Richmond. Teammate Shelbi Simpson was right on Rupp’s heels, finishing in third place with a time of 23:03.89.

Georgetown, Western Brown and Goshen rounded out the top-5 for the girls and were the only teams that had five runners participate.

Batavia had four runners enter the race, all of them finishing from 31-38 and within 2:30 of each other. Megan Easterday led the way with a 30:02.85, followed by Erin Mackey, Sammy Saigorney and Taylor Albright.

Felicity only had two runners compete, Kaitlin Sharp and Cheyenne Trammell. They finished 33rd and 34th, respectively.

As for other locals in the top-20, Bethel-Tate’s Haley Taylor finished fifth with a 23:28.76, Goshen’s Brittany Clark was right behind her in sixth place with a 23:34.70. New Richmond’s Bailey Haas was seventh, Bethel-Tate’s duo of Brenna Keyser and Allison Parks were eighth and ninth, Goshen’s Courtney Turner was 12th, Bethel’s Morgan Reinhart was 15th, New Richmond’s Grace Hauserman was 16th and Bethel’s Madison Mundy was 20th.

For full team schedules, go to www.schedules.myohsaa.org.usschedules.myohsaa.org and search for your school.

All of the SBC teams will be on hand on Oct. 11 at New Richmond for the conference meet.