OBETZ, Ohio — Milford’s girls cross country team spent three years climbing toward the top of Division I. On Saturday morning at Fortress Obetz, the Eagles reached it, winning the program’s first-ever state cross country championship in the opening race of the OHSAA state meet, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Milford finished with a team score of 111 points, led by regional champion Elle Campbell, who finished eighth individually, the Enquirer reported. In cross country, the lowest team score wins — and no Division I girls team in Ohio scored lower than the Eagles on Saturday.
The championship was the payoff for the best stretch in program history. The Clermont Sun reported that Milford qualified for the state meet for a record third straight season this fall after finishing seventh two seasons ago and fifth last year — a steady climb that ended on the top step. This year, both Milford’s girls and boys teams qualified for state in the same season for the first time in school history.
Campbell has been the face of the rise. The Clermont Sun named her its Athlete of the Week after she won the Division I regional championship at Troy on Oct. 31 for the second straight season, running 18:11 to lead Milford to its second consecutive regional team title with 75 points. A three-time Eastern Cincinnati Conference Runner of the Year, she delivered again at state with her eighth-place finish anchoring the Eagles’ scoring pack.
Team titles in cross country are rarely about one runner, though. Milford’s regional championship came from depth — a league-high seven Eagles earned all-conference honors this season, according to Milford Athletics — and a state-meet score of 111 means the Eagles’ scoring five packed tightly enough to beat every other Division I program in Ohio.
For Milford’s seniors, the title also closes a complete arc: they arrived as the program was still learning how to reach the state meet, and they leave as the class that won it. The Eagles’ third straight trip to Obetz was supposed to be the goal. Instead, it became the coronation.
Elsewhere at the state meet Saturday, the Enquirer reported that Little Miami’s Ryne Reynolds won the Division I boys individual championship in 15:01.4 and Springboro’s boys won the Division I team title with 107 points. But the morning belonged to Milford: a first state championship, earned one place at a time over three seasons, and a trophy heading back to Clermont County.
Photo: Jonathan Schilling, CC BY-SA 4.0
[…] race that also produced a first-time team champion. As NewsForce247 reported earlier Saturday, Milford’s girls won the program’s first-ever state team championship in the same opening race, scoring 111 points behind regional champion Elle Campbell’s […]
[…] the Division I girls race produced its own first-time team champion, covered by NewsForce247 in Milford’s first-ever state cross country championship at Obetz. Huddle’s win was the meet’s other breakthrough — by a single runner from Henry […]
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