George Brown

No doubt you heard or saw news reports last week week about the “Magicicada” invasion that is about to hit the east coast, ranging from North Carolina all the way to Connecticut. Also known as the “Periodic Cicada,” these winged insects emerge from the soil in various years and in various regions of the eastern half of the United States every 17 years. You will recall we had our turn locally in 2004, and will again in 2021.

News of the east coast cicada extravaganza – also known as cicadamania,cicadapocalypse, and swarmageddon – brings to mind yet another event that occurred at the base of the old oak tree in Half Acre Woods back in 1953.

Having just turned seven, I had never heard of a cicada let alone seen one. It was fascinating to watch as tens of thousands of little bug-eyed insects started bubbling up out of the ground and then began to sing their zany buzzing song.

Mom said when they last emerged, back in 1936, times were tough so she and most everyone she knew scrambled cicadas in their eggs or put them in stews, and some folks even saved them in jars in the cellar to snack on during the winter. I told her that sounded good to me but she said she had sort of lost her taste for them. Dad said he remembered eating them too, but mostly he remembered using them for fish bait. He suggested I gather up a few for us to go fishing at the big pond over on the other side of Half Acre Woods.

Finding cicadas was easy enough. There were tens of thousands, maybe millions, to choose from. But nowhere were they more prolific than under the old oak tree in Half Acre Woods where they had been reappearing and multiplying every 17 years for two centuries or more. More importantly, Dad said the old oak tree was sure to be the best place to find a blue-eyed cicada. He said all cicadas have red eyes, except maybe one in a million has blue eyes. He was pretty sure only the females had blue eyes. “It will bring us good luck when we go fishing, if you’re lucky enough to find one,” he told me.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of Dad’s knowledge about cicadas, but he said listening to the males sing the “Cicada Blues” reminded him of Hank Williams singing “Lovesick Blues.” With a big chuckle he added, “There ain’t nothing worse than hearing your baby say goodbye. All you want to do is sit and cry, especially when you know she’s going to be gone for another 17 years.” Dad had a big grin on his face as he finished this little story. I knew Hank Williams was his favorite singer, and “Lovesick Blues” was his favorite song.

Mom gave me a Mason jar, covered with a piece of wax paper with some holes punched in it and pulled tight with a rubber band, and I headed for the old oak tree. It was early June so most of the cicadas had already emerged. By the time I reached the old oak tree I was nearly knee deep in cicadas and the sound of their singing was so deafening I thought my eardrums would burst. The air was thick with cicadas and scores were beginning to land all over me. As I shook them off I thought to myself, “How in the world am I ever going to find a blue eyed cicada?”

Those words had no more than passed through my brain when I looked over toward the opening at the base of the old oak tree – the spot where I liked to hide when playing tag or hide and seek -and right there by the edge of the opening was a beautiful blue eyed cicada, sitting there all by herself as though she was just waiting for me to catch her. As I waded through the cicadas, I was afraid she might fly away but I needn’t have worried because apparently she had just emerged and was letting her wings dry before flying high into the old oak tree to mate and then lay her eggs, just as her mother and grandmothers had done for unknown generations.

I know it sounds silly to say a cicada is pretty, but you would have to have seen “Pretty Blue Eyes” – that’s the name I gave her. Her eyes sparkled and her silver wings glistened in the sunlight as I gently picked her up and placed her in the palm of my hand. Then, not wanting her to fly away, I placed her in the Mason jar. As she peered at me through the side of the jar, her eyes and face magnified to twice their size and I could have sworn the corners of her mandibles curled up into a little smile.

Returning home, I showed Pretty Blue Eyes to Dad and Mom and both were greatly impressed. “Well, shall we go fishing,” Dad asked?

“I don’t know,” I said reluctantly.

Dad could tell I’d had a change of heart. “I know son, it’s those pretty blue eyes, isn’t it?” Without waiting for me to answer, he added, “That’s alright, there are plenty of red-eyed cicadas to use for bait.”

I carefully placed the Mason jar containing Pretty Blue Eyes on the picnic table in the shade of a nearby maple tree. We then gathered our fishing tackle, caught a few red-eyed cicadas, and headed through Half Acre Woods to reach the big pond. As we passed by the old oak tree I paused and show Dad the exact spot where I’d found Pretty Blue Eyes.

We had a successful afternoon using red-eyed cicadas for bait, and while fishing a great idea came to me. When we arrived home Dad started cleaning the fish for Mom to fry for supper (along with some fried potatoes and cornbread), while I pursued my idea. I found the biggest red-eyed male cicada I could (I knew it was a male because Dad said only the males sing), then I removed Pretty Blue Eyes from the jar and placed her and the male cicada side by side on a limb of the maple tree, which was not far from my bedroom window.

By then it was time for supper. The fried fish was delicious and Mom had added something crunchy to the fried potatoes that made them taste especially good. When I asked what it was she just winked at Dad, smiled, and said, “I knew you would like them.”

I slept well that night and woke up early the next morning to the most beautiful rendition you of “Cicada-Lovesick Blues” you could ever imagine. I knew right away it had to be Big Red Eyes singing his heart out, knowing he wouldn’t see Pretty Blue Eyes for another 17 years.

George Brown is a freelance writer. He lives in Jackson Township.

Sherrod Brown

Although it is shocking that the national death toll from prescription overdoses has doubled in recent years, what is even more alarming is that in our state, it has tripled. In fact, since 2007, more Ohioans have died from accidental prescription drug overdoses than auto accidents. This is unconscionable. Ohio families deserve help and they deserve answers.

We know that easy access to prescription drugs has fueled the prescription drug epidemic that engulfs communities in all of Ohio’s 88 counties. But fortunately, this problem does not have to touch another family, or take another life. Prescription pain medications, such as Oxycodone, morphine, and methadone – which are largely responsible for increasing overdoses and deaths – can be disposed of safely.

That’s why efforts, like National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, which was held this year on the last Saturday in April, are so important. The Ohio Attorney General’s office estimated that Ohioans disposed of more than 16 tons of unused prescription drugs on Take Back Day, this year. Last year, Ohioans disposed of 13 tons, so it’s clear that we are making strides in bringing community awareness – both to the problem of prescription drug abuse and to the methods available to stop the epidemic. Although the national Take Back Day has come and gone, there are drug drop off locations throughout Ohio that operate all year. In order to find a site near you, please visit: http://www.brown.senate.gov/rxtakeback.

But beyond prescription take-back programs, there’s even more work we can do to protect families and the integrity of health insurance programs – especially as some bad actors use the Medicaid system to fuel their addictions or obtain prescription drugs to sell. We can save taxpayer dollars – and lives – by stopping criminals and addicts from illegally using Medicaid cards to fill false prescriptions for addictive drugs.

That’s why I will reintroduce the Stop Trafficking of Pills Act, to create a “Medicaid Lock-In”. This legislation would require national adoption of Medicaid Lock-In programs that limit the number of doctors from which a high-risk patient can receive prescriptions. It does the same for pharmacies – cutting down on the “pharmacy hopping” and “doctor shopping” of high-risk patients who abuse or sell these powerful drugs.

This is important because the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found some 65,000 cases in which Medicaid beneficiaries visited six or more doctors, and up to 46 different pharmacies to acquire prescription drugs. GAO also found that about 1,800 prescriptions written for dead patients and some 1,200 prescriptions were “written” by dead physicians. This is illegal, immoral, and has cost the lives of far too many people. This must stop.

Since 2011, I’ve worked to stop this problem – by urging Attorney General Holder to work with state agencies to establish tactical diversion squads and calling on Governors to stop the “Oxy-Express”, the prescription drug pipeline from states like Florida to Ohio.

We cannot afford to let improper disposal, pharmacy-shopping, and doctor-hopping threaten the safety of Ohio families. Together, we can move forward and create safer communities by addressing the concerns of Ohioans who are eager to end prescription drug abuse – and save lives.

Sherrod Brown is a United States Senator from Ohio.

Josh Mandel

As Ohio’s treasurer and watchdog of Ohioans’ hard-earned dollars, I am proud to stand up to support sanity and fiscal responsibility in state and local government. That’s why I urge the Ohio legislature to pass House Bill 5 in order to simplify Ohio’s municipal income-tax system.

Ohio is the only state in which every city and village sets its own rules and regulations about who must pay taxes, how much and on what type of income. More than 600 local government entities have devised more than 300 different tax forms. As a result, our municipal-tax reality is an unnecessary maze of inconsistency, uncertainty and inefficiency.

There is a reason why no other state subjects its residents and businesses to such a complex and cumbersome web of tax rules and forms.

As a former city councilman, I understand local distrust of state government, but in this case, arguments in favor of keeping the status quo are far outweighed by the merits of a more streamlined and rational approach. As I travel the state, meeting with small businesses, entrepreneurs and skilled laborers, this issue comes up time and again.

For example, an electrician in Minster was required to file 39 different municipal tax forms last year. He owed a tax to every city he visited in a single workday, even if he was there for 10 minutes or less. If he worked in any one of those municipalities more than 12 days in a year, he was required to file its tax forms.

This unfortunate case highlights how our current law kills jobs and is an obstacle to small-business growth. Many small businesses pay more to the accountants and lawyers helping them wade through the endless sea of tax forms than they actually owe in taxes.

Most of the forms that this electrician filed were for less than $5, though he paid on average $150 to prepare and file each return.

More than 20 organizations representing thousands of Ohioans agree that the multitude of municipal income-tax regulations on the books stifles economic growth. Small businesses are supporting this legislation not because they believe they will pay less in taxes but because they hope to spend less time and money on confusing bureaucracy and more on creating jobs. If local businesses are able to invest in increasing sales and productivity instead of funding an army of compliance officers, it will be a net positive for job growth.

State lawmakers have a great opportunity to enact common-sense reforms that will help create an environment where the private sector can flourish. My hope is that our state will put a more-rational system in place so that money currently being wasted on mountains of municipal income-tax paperwork instead can be invested to fuel Ohio job growth.

Ohio House Bill 5, introduced by Reps. Cheryl Grossman of Grove City and Michael Henne of Clayton, helps streamline this patchwork of local rules, forms and definitions of income to make Ohio’s municipal income-tax system simpler, fairer and more friendly for job creation.

Josh Mandel is Ohio’s State Treasurer.

In the back row, from left to right, assistant coach Paul Krause, Aric France, Isaiah Chitkara, Stephen Krause, Devin Milton, Brandon Bishop, assistant coach Dwayne Deweese, Alex Kennedy, head coach Shawn Whisman and Hunter Dewesse. In the front row, from left to right, Evan Baugh, Brayden Runion, Ander Kohrs, Dylan Whisman and John Stringfellow.

The team played in the Hoosier Championships in Columbus, Indiana April 27th and 28th. The team made it to the finals against some of the best teams in the nation. In the semifinals, the Flash beat the 2012 Travel Ball National Champion, the Lids Indiana Bulls, 8-2.

A Lids Indiana Bulls parent, Eric Hazlett, said of the Flash, “We made one or two errors, but played our usual best. You guys just rocked. From the perfectly placed hits to the supreme pitching and awesome coaching. Way to go, men. Keep it up the rest of the season.”

The Flash fell in the finals to Zionsville Baseball. The runner-up finish in such an elite tournament also earned the team a trip to a Chicago White Sox game in August where the team will be in a parade. They will also to walk in uniform around the Chicago White Sox field before the game. 

The Flash went on to win a tournament at Rumpke Park this past Mother’s Day weekend.  The Flash Gold was in a very tough bracket with all National League Level Teams (the highest level of select baseball in the Cincinnati area) in their bracket. 

The Flash defeated Vintage Baseball of Mason and the Ohio Force to advance to the tournament finals. In the decisive game against the Cincinnati Tribe, the Flash won a close 2-1 game thanks to some clutch pitching from Dylan Whisman in relief.

Clermont Northeastern pitcher Emily Anderson is one of the best pitchers in the state.

With the official “second season” underway in Ohio High School softball, a handful of Clermont County high schools have high hopes for an extended stay in the state tournament.

Leading the charge out of Clermont is the county’s namesake institution, Clermont Northeastern. The Lady Rockets, led by an experienced group of seniors who know how to win in the postseason, have expectations instead of goals.

“Our goal is to get to state,” CNE head coach Bill Goldfuss said. “We want to win regionals and get to state. Obviously, you’d like to win a state championship, that’s the ultimate goal, but we want to get there. (We want to see) can we get to state and then go from there.”

CNE will be led on that journey upstate by their blue chip pitcher Emily Anderson. The Lady Rockets dispatched of their first-round opponent, Mariemont, 22-0 behind 12 strikeouts from Anderson. The pitcher eclipsed the 1,200 career strikeout barrier in the game, putting her at seventh all-time in Ohio High School softball history.

Senior first baseman McKena Miller went 2-3 with five RBI, Chelsae Osborn went 2-3 with two RBI and sophomore Allison Gilkerson went 3-3 with a double, a home run and three RBI. CNE advanced to face St. Bernard at Wednesday, May 15.

Also already in action were Felicity-Franklin, the No. 5 seed. The Lady Cardinals took down No. 12 seed Taylor 3-2 and advance to play No. 2 Fayetteville who defeated Williamsburg, ending the Lady Wildcats’ season.

In Division I, Southern Buckeye Conference American Division co-champions Amelia took down Winton Woods 12-2 in the first round to set up a cross-county game against No. 10 seed Milford on Wednesday.

Glen Este, the No. 7 seed, opted to take a bye in the first round and played No. 9 Colerain in the second round on Wednesday, May 15.

In Division II action, all games were played on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule with New Richmond, Batavia, Bethel-Tate and Goshen all in action on Tuesday, May 14.

The Lady Lions played SBC foe Western Brown, while Batavia played No. 3-seeded Wilmington.

Bethel-Tate and Goshen faced off against each other in the first round as the Lady Warriors tried to get some revenge for the 7-0 loss the Lady Tigers hung on them on Friday, April 5.

New Richmond and Batavia have a chance to play one another if both advance to the sectional final, but they will have to win games over higher seeds to set that date on May 21 at Milford.

The winner of Goshen and Bethel will play either No. 5 Indian Hill or No. 7 Talawanda on Thursday, May 16.

For scores and updates of previous games, be sure to follow @ClerSunSports on Twitter. To see the full brackets, you can log on to the Southwest District Athletic Board’s website at swdab.org or the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s website at ohsaa.org.

The beginning of a new season has started for Clermont County high school baseball teams as the slate is wiped clean and one game means everything for the rest of the season.

The sectional tournament kicked off on Monday, May 13 with Batavia and Williamsburg in action in the Division III bracket and continued Tuesday and Wednesday with all but two teams having played at least one game by the time of this printing.

Milford and Clermont Northeastern both get their postseason under way on Thursday evening after receiving first-round byes by virtue of the draw that took place on Sunday, May 5. Felicity-Franklin also got a bye in Division IV and will play at No. 9 Lockland on Wednesday, May 15.

League champions Milford and New Richmond both have high hopes for postseason runs as Milford, seeded No. 4 overall in the Cincinnati Division I sectional will play the winner of Fairfield and Western Brown on Thursday, May 16 at 5 p.m.

The Eagles claimed the inaugural Eastern Cincinnati Conference league title outright on May 13 with a 6-5 win over Walnut Hills in eight innings.

The league championship was the 14th in school history and the fourth in the last six years.

If the Cincinnati 3 bracket plays out to chalk, Milford would face Elder in the sectional championship on May 23 at Lakota East.

In the Southern Buckeye Conference, the New Richmond Lions captured a share of the league title, splitting the honor with Western Brown. Both teams were 8-2 in conference play.

By virtue of a strong regular season and a solid reputation as one of the area’s top teams, the Lions received the No. 1 seed in the Cincinnati Division II sectional. They faced No. 8 seed Wilmington in the first round of the tournament on Tuesday.

With a win, New Richmond would face McNicholas on May 16 at home with a trip to the sectional final on the line.

Batavia advanced to the second round of the Division III sectional tournament thanks to some timely hitting in their 10-9 win over Reading. Senior Ryan Gormley and juniors Kyle Schmitgen and Korey Puckett went a combined 10-12 with three RBI.

The No. 4 Bulldogs advanced to play No. 3 Summit Country Day on Wednesday, May 15.

Williamsburg, the only other team in action on Monday, defeated Deer Park 5-4 to move on to play top seed Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy on Wednesday as well.

The majority of area teams played on a Tuesday/Thursday basis with the exception of Batavia and Williamsburg.

In Division I, 23rd seeded Amelia played No. 13 seed St. Xavier on Tuesday at St. X; No. 18 Glen Este played No. 29 Sycamore on Tuesday for the right to face third seeded Lakota East on May 16.

In Division II, Bethel-Tate, the six seed, hosted 13 seed Hughes on Tuesday with No. 2 seed Wyoming awaiting the winner and fourth-seeded Goshen played No. 10 Taft.

Clermont Northeastern, the No. 3 seed in Division II, will play the winner of the No. 11 Aiken and No. 12 Taylor game on Thursday at CNE.

Fitzgerald

Local high school football players will have a unique opportunity to this weekend to greatly improve their recruitment stock when the Elite Athletic Events hosts a football combine at Bethel-Tate High School on Sunday, May 19.

Any college or professional football fan is familiar with the word “combine.” When you hear it, you immediately think of the top college football prospects in the nation, draped head to toe in Under Armour gear, running 40-yard dashes in Indianapolis for a plethora of NFL scouts who overuse other words like “upside,” “explosive” and “motor.”

While the spectacle of the NFL Combine has gained mainstream traction in recent years, college recruiting has stepped up as well. More people want to play collegiate and professional sports than ever before.

What Kevin Fitzgerald, the founder and CEO of EAE, uncovered was the need for a recruitment tool that isn’t based on word of mouth. Fitzgerald’s idea for the company came as off-shoot of his duties as the strength and conditioning coach for various college programs such as Florida State, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt.

“When I was at Florida State, one of my duties every year was to organize and execute our NFL Pro Day,” Fitzgerald said. “I was familiar how to organize it and how to run our guys through the testing and position-specific drills. And even though the scouts would be there, they would always ask for a video at the end.

“That always struck me. The video was the most important thing. (Scouts would say) we need to confirm what we just saw was really what we just saw.”

This is where Fitzgerald generated the idea to fill a need. With recruiting and scouting rules vastly different in terms of NFL teams scouting college prospects and colleges teams scouting high school prospects, Fitzgerald began EAE as a way to run prospective high school players through a combine-like workout that would give the concrete evidence to send to college coaches.

Per NCAA rules, college coaches are prohibited to attend such workouts.

“In the past, college coaches have always had to rely on word of mouth,” Fitzgerald said. “They had to rely on (the fact that) the organization that is running the camp is reputable, that they’re doing the right thing for both the player and the colleges. Long story short, they don’t come through.”

Because of the competitive nature of college recruitment and without hard evidence to support their claims, Fitzgerald said any time or statistics he and his program would receive from high school athletes or coaches would be adjusted.

“The generalization is any combine that a kid goes to, we’re going to add time onto his 40-yard dash because from kids that have come to the programs I’ve been at, what we’ve been told they ran and what they run when we tested them, they were always faster at the other places,” Fitzgerald explained. “They were always faster and always bigger for some reason, but when they came to us, they were a little bit slower and a little bit smaller.”

As a result, the athletes who are accurately recorded at these individual workouts get penalized because of the automatic adjustment made from the lack of trust that exists between college programs and the combines reporting the times.

Fitzgerald said that many of the athletes and coaches at the high school level don’t really know that. He called it an unwritten rule among college programs that if there’s not video evidence, they don’t believe the times and stats reported at face value.

EAE Combines alleviates that uncertainty by recording each player’s workout, giving him or her the opportunity to use that as his or her own recruiting tool.
Fitzgerald says his organization is in no way affiliated with recruitment in terms of getting players looks from colleges. Simply put, they create an unbiased and impartial record of what each athlete does. It is then up to the athlete and their family to determine how they want to use the footage.

“By doing the combine properly, I can tell the coaches to trust me, but it’s all trust by verifying” Fitzgerald said. “I have no problem with (a coach) grabbing a stopwatch and watching that video up on our website and they don’t have to trust me right away, but when they retime (an athlete) themselves, they’ll be comfortable (with what we’re doing).”

The camp, which will take place from 1-6 p.m. on Sunday, is open for registration for all athletes of high school age. Fitzgerald said athletes come multiple years in order to have an understanding of what to expect and how to perform their best.

Each athlete will receive a combine jersey, which is a shirt with a number on it and a copy of their edited combine video that they can send out to schools at their discretion.

The price is $75 for early registration or $100 on Sunday. For more information on the combine and Elite Athletic Events in general, visit the organization’s website at eliteathleticevents.com.

The University of Cincinnati Clermont College baseball team celebrates following their 6-3 win over Penn State University Greater Allegheny to win the USCAA Small School World Series.

The University of Cincinnati – Clermont College won the school’s second national title on Thursday, May 9 when the men’s baseball team took down host school Penn State University – Greater Allegheny in the second game of the double-elimination tournament to win the United States Collegiate Athletic Association World Series Small School Division.

“I’ve been a part of four high school teams that have lost in the state championship, so this was a blessing for me,” the Cougars head coach Jack Harbison said. “And to be around these boys is a blessing. They’re good kids and a tight-knit group. They keep me young.”

Aside from the personal significance of the victory, Harbison said that the Cougars ability to accomplish the feat in only the sixth year of the baseball program’s existence was special as well.

Despite the relatively young program, Clermont has had its share of success in the infancy of the team. The 2013 version of the Cougars were the third team to qualify for the USCAA World Series, finishing fourth and second, respectively.

A large contribution to the success and vitality of the program came earlier this year when the Cougars moved to their new home, Brian Wilson Field.

“I think that facility, Brian Wilson Field, must have some magic dust in there,” Dean Gregory Sojka said. “Some Brian Wilson and Jay Bruce must have rubbed off. We won some 20 games in a row when we started there.”

The field was a project headed up and funded by the Cincinnati Reds Community Fund with help from UC-Clermont and Batavia Township.

The student-athletes who played on that field, however, were the true magic ingredient that spurred the Cougars on to a great season.

Four individuals in particular — Steven Hendrickson (Wayne), Chris Sunderman (Glen Este), Ryan Mummert (Clermont Northeastern) and Josh Williamson (Fairfield) — were honored with All-American recognition.

The season was a tale of three parts. The Cougars got off to hot start, winning five of their first six games before going on a skid that saw their record slip to 7-7-1 (the tie came during a doubleheader that had to be called after five innings due to darkness). From that April 6 onward, the Cougars would go undefeated to close out the regular season, finishing with a 24-7-1 record.

The team’s hard work did not go unnoticed as they were near the top of the USCAA Power Rankings for the last month of the season and earned a No. 3 seed in the 10-team World Series.

“They rank the teams according to their strength of schedule and your win-loss percentage,” Harbison explained. “We were ranked third to end the season so we got invited to the tournament and were seeded third in the tournament.“

The USCAA World Series is set up as a double-elimination tournament, with losing teams being relegated to a consolation bracket, but still having an opportunity to compete for the national title.

The Cougars earned a favorable draw as the No. 3 seed, not having to face the host school (Penn State University – Greater Allegheny) or the top seed (The Apprentice School) until at least the finals of the winner’s bracket.

The Cougars beat their first-round opponent, Southern Virginia University, 6-0 behind the strength of a Josh Williamson complete game, five-hitter.

Perhaps advantageously in the second round, Clermont faced the No. 7-seeded Lindenwood-Belleville, who upset No. 2 seed Clark State Community College to advance. The Cougars pulled off a 6-3 win as both Jake Scarlato (Oak Hills) and John Kennedy (Loveland) went 3-4 from the dish with a combined two RBI and three runs scored.

The win secured Clermont a trip to the semifinals with no losses to speak of.

“We had to play a couple of tough schools, but managed to stay in the winner’s bracket,” Harbison said of the early-round games. “In the third round, we had to play the No. 1 seed (The Apprentice School) and we beat them 6-0.”

The 6-0 win also saw the emergence of right-handed pitcher Ryan Beard (Batavia). The sophomore threw seven scoreless innings, giving up six hits and striking out five batters.

At that point, the Cougars assured themselves of a championship spot with a team from the loser’s bracket needing to beat them twice to take the World Series crown away from Clermont.

“We had to wait for somebody to come out of the loser’s bracket,” Harbison recounted. “The host team, Penn State-Allegheny, came out of that. You never want to play the host team in a tournament like this. They have the fans and they’re at home sleeping in their own beds and eating their own food. It just makes it a whole lot easier for them.”

It became evident to Harbison and his team that they weren’t going to have a cake walk to the championship as they fell in the first game 8-7 in 10 innings.

“The first game is when we knew we were in a dog fight,” the coach said. “It was back-and-forth, back-and-forth.”

The Clermont pitchers got shelled a bit in the opening innings of the game, but Harbison said long reliever Joey Wahl (Batavia) came in and settled the team down and gave them a shot before giving up an unearned run in the 10th inning to seal it.

Having earned the right to lose a game, the Cougars knew they still had a shot at the title.

“There’s not much time between games and (Wahl) was loose and warm and had some life left in his arm, (so he started the game),” Harbison said. “At that point, you’re running out of pitchers, so you have to make sure to use everything you have. We felt that (Wahl) could give us a few innings at the start of the game.”

Harbison said that perhaps Wahl sat a little too long, causing him to give up three runs in the first two innings. Despite pitching a complete game the day before, Harbison gave Beard the nod once again.

“(Beard) said that his arm still felt good,” the coach said. “So much of it is chemistry and the guys feel good playing behind (Beard), he threw a perfect game earlier in the season. We went ahead and brought him in and he threw seven shutout innings for us.

Trailing 3-1 in the early going, the Cougars’ bats came alive, scoring two runs in the fifth inning and three runs in the sixth to take a 6-3 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

Milford product Mike Gastrich had a big game going 2-5 with a home run and three RBI. Kennedy went 3-4 with a run scored and Mummert went 3-5 with two doubles.

“Our defense and pitching has been our key all year,” Harbison said. “We score runs, but the big thing is that we don’t give them back. We don’t make errors. We had a brief, frank discussion between innings when (Beard) came in and I told them to relax, play their game, quit trying to do too much.”

For their efforts, Jake Scarlato, John Kennedy and Mike Gastrich were named to the All-Tournament Team and Ryan Beard was named the Tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

He previously lived in Kenwood and was a long time member of the Terrace Park Country Club.

Foraker was preceded in death by his wife Marjorie Richerson Foraker.

He is survived by daughters Susan (Warren) Osako, Judith (Kevin) Dougherty, and Patricia (Boyd) Piper, grandchildren Mitchell Osako, Chris (Karen) Snay, Patrick and Tim Dougherty, Ryan, Andy, and Cody Piper, and great-grandchildren Kelly Jackson, Austin and Conner Snay.

His children will be holding a private family service in memory of their father.

She was a large supporter of numerous Christian and veteran organizations.

Hall was preceded in death by daughter Carlissa Dee Hall and sister Wanda Louise Davis.

She is survived by husband Carl Douglas Hall, daughter Shoyna (Robert) Ollendick, grandson Jeremy Hall, and siblings Tony Wisecup and Sanna Rae Wisecup, as well as numerous nieces, nephews, family, and friends.

Visitation held 10 a.m. May 17 at E.C. Nurre Funeral Home in Amelia, followed by funeral services at 11 a.m. Interment at Manchester Cemetery in Manchester.

Memorials may be made to City Gospel Mission at 1419 Elm St. Cincinnati, OH 45202 or Paralyzed Veterans of America at 801 18th St. NW Washington D.C. 2006 or Billy Gram Ministries.