Local Sports

Perdue, Meholovitch Lead Pack In Belmont County Championships

Bellaire Girls, St. Clairsville Boys Take Team Titles

MORRISTOWN -- Bigger stages there may be, but there remains something special about the Belmont County Championships, where six local cross country teams linked up to go for the gold Wednesday on a course winding behind Union Local High School.

Bellaire's girls and St. Clairsville's boys teams came out on top when the dust settled, while Shadyside's Chloe Meholovitch and Bellaire's Landen Perdue took first place as individuals in their respective races. Each was grateful to perform well in a race like Wednesday's.

"I think it’s a race that has a lot of girls I really got to know throughout the years and really got close to. It’s great to have all those teams together for a race, and there's a lot of memories."

Meholovitch and Perdue are both seniors.

"I love how all the teams around here can come together and run in one race," Perdue said. "It’s a pretty good environment here. You see a lot of people near your hometown too. I’m friends with a lot of people here, and it's nice to come here and race against people I know instead of always racing against, you know, unknown people."

Meholovitch clocked a 20:21.33 Wednesday. The Tiger runner won the Belmont County Championships in her freshman season, and took advantage of her last go-round Wednesday.

"This course just has a special place in my heart," Meholovitch said. "It was my first win a few years ago, so I was just really hoping to finish out my senior year by bringing it back. And it’s a really hard course, but I really like the challenge."

"She really wanted it this year," Shadyside head coach Michael Coyne said. "She won it as a freshman and so she wanted to come back and win as a senior."

Perdue sped through the track in 16:55.27, and defended his title after coming in first-place last season as well.

All involved pointed out the difficulty of Wednesday's course. Perdue set a school record in a meet this past weekend at Fort Frye, clocking a 15:32 to break Mike Buddenburg's record set in 1992. At Union Local High School though, such a time was going to be hard to repeat.

"The first couple weeks of the season he’s done under 16 minutes," Bellaire head coach Chris Arno said. "This course is almost physically impossible to get near that, especially with the temperature today. He ran well here last year, so I think he’s got a little chip on his shoulder."

The course Wednesday included wooded portions, and plenty of hilly stretches.

"I think I went out a little bit too strong," Meholovitch said of her race. "I was looking forward to that downhill, and it was a bigger challenge than I remember coming back up, but I pushed through, and I’m really proud of myself for that part."

"When I got down to the woods, that started kicking my butt," Perdue said. "And the hills down there, they got me, they were pretty bad. But we also ran pretty bad hills during practice, so that got me through it well enough. And then once I got out of the woods and I got back on flat, I was cruising there."

Rounding out the top five finishers in the boys' race, in descending order, was Union Local's Connor Bendo (17:17.29), St. Clairsville's Ryan Fulton (18:22.17), St. Clairsville's George Dormas (18:39.54) and Martins Ferry's Aries Tolliver (18:57.82).

Rounding out the top five in the girls' race, in descending order, was Bellaire's Paisley Farrier (20:40.65), Bellaire's Kamdin Snider (21:38.30), Bellaire's Kayla Edgar (22:06.70) and St. Clairsville's Sophia Saho (22:59.86).

Bellaire took the girls team title with 24 points, Shadyside followed as runners-up with 57 points. Barnesville took third and Martins Ferry took fourth; St. Clairsville and Union Local did not qualify as a team.

St. Clairsville took the boys team title with 40 points, and Martins Ferry were runners-up with 49 points. Bellaire finished in third, Barnesville in fourth and Union Local in fifth; Shadyside did not qualify as a team.

Barnesville’s boys and Bellaire's girls won the Junior High races.