The official website for the Oak Hills High School student newspaper
3200 Ebenezer Road, Cincinnati, OH, USA
Making the Most of Senior Year
By Leah Lindemann
Girls Lacrosse!
by Oliva Young
Spring has arrived and here in Ohio spring means three things; rain, snow, and Lacrosse season. On Tuesday March 20th the Varsity girls took on Seton High School for their first Lacrosse game. The final score was 4-13 with Seton taking the lead. It was a cold rainy game, but the Oak Hills girls played tough and didn’t let the sleet stop them. Best of luck to the girls this season and I hope everyone gets a chance to watch our girls play this spring!
Posted: April 9th, 2018
Posted: May 13th, 2018
Michael Radcliffe is a senior who is fully taking advantage of all the opportunities that his high school provides. While most seniors in the YOLO generation are worried about senior parties, spring break, and senior trip, Michael continues to write a different story for his senior year.
Early in his high school career, Michael stuck with what he knew, which was playing soccer. He was a one-sport athlete that trained year round for his sport. He has many great memories from his soccer career, including assisting on the game winning goal over Elder earlier this year.
However, during his Junior year, Michael decided to switch things up. As a result, he joined the track team in the spring. “We were thrilled to get Michael to come out for the track season,” mentioned Boy’s track and field coach Ben Hageman. “Michael was a heck of a runner in middle school and we had been talking him into it for nearly three years.” Not only did Michael begin running track, but he made an immediate impact on the team and found instant success running with the team’s mid-distance athletes. He was a key member of the 4x800m relay that made the regional track and field meet.
If adding track in the spring wasn’t enough, Radcliffe decided that swimming would be the perfect addition to his already two senior sports. However, swimming was a unique choice, as he had no background of competitive swimming. According Andy Schroeder, Oak Hills swim team coach, “Our biggest regrets are not the things we do, but what we wish we had done. Michael's participation in swimming was one of the experiences he did not want to leave high school without .” The experience for Michael was valuable. More remarkable, is that despite spending all his time involved with activities, Radcliffe has managed to maintain a 4.0 G.P.A., is graduating with Highest Honors, and is in the to 10% of his class.
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If school and academics were not enough, Radcliffe is involved in other activities such as FCA( Fellowship of Christian Athletes) a new Oak Hills club. FCA is a new club where athletes and non-athletes join to talk about their faith. He even finds time on Sunday’s to help with his mom’s preschool classes. In the era of specialization, Radcliffe is the rare student who finds time to embrace all aspects of a high school students life.
As his high school year comes to an end, Radcliffe will finish his career in soccer as a two-time GMC second team all-conference player, a regional qualifier in track and field, and winner of the famous Highlander award. He will go on to college at the University of Cincinnati where he will pursue a degree Carl H. Lindner College of Business. He believes that all of his high school experiences have helped him to learn how to work effectively with others and will go a long way toward helping him be successful in college.
Michael’s legacy goes beyond his personal accolades. He is showing underclassman that is important to embrace the moment and enjoy all the experiences. “I just wanted to wear the Highlander jersey one more time and make the most of my senior year. I knew it would be over in the blink of an eye.”
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Is Playing High School Sports Worth it?
by Guest Writer Brooke Chaille
Who doesn’t like the sound of coming home after a long six and a half hour day of school and curling up in their nice cozy bed, only to fall into a great deep sleep? If not then you’re probably crazy or maybe you’d just rather flip on the TV or netflix to watch your favorite show while you’re waiting for your pizza rolls to be done. Or you’re the type of person who’d prefer to hangout with friends after school. However you like spending your free time is up to you, but is there something that disrupts you from enjoying those things after your long day of responsibilities and obligations?
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According to a freshmen at Oak Hills High School, one that I know all too well, she prefers spending her time after school training and practicing for the sports she participates in. Her name is Jordan Chaille, better known to me as my little sister, who, in my eyes, has never been the type to choose athletics over a solid two hour nap followed by spending three hours binge watching “Vampire Diaries.” This interview gave me a little more insight on how my baby sister is growing and developing as a great student and athlete.
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She plays JV womens tennis for Oak Hills in the fall as well as swimming varsity for the lady Highlanders in the winter. According to Jordan, she spends lots of time training for her respective sports. “For tennis, practices usually last about 2 ½ hours while swim team is a 3 hour practice, with meets that last all day long,” “Chaille said.” With school ending at 2:45 and practice starting at 3 that means Jordan normally doesn’t get home until 6 o’clock basically every single school night to then spend two to three hours on homework and any other chore or responsibilities she may have. So when is her free time? According to Jordan, “After having practice and doing school work I don’t have much time for myself because I want to be in bed by a decent time so I can then do it all again the next day.”
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A side note from free time, “The hardest thing I have learned this year about playing sports in high school is keeping up my grades and doing all my assignments,” Jordan said. To play a high school sport you have to be passing a certain amount of classes and have decent grades. As you can see this can be difficult if you spend more time practicing then the amount of time you have to do homework from 5+ classes. Coming from my past experiences, this is forsure a hard task to juggle, especially if honors and AP courses are the type of classes you take, in which homework is given everyday of the week. Although she claims it’s the hardest part about playing high school sports, Jordan says “It’s totally worth it.”
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If spending 6 ½ hours at school learning to then stay for another three hours for practice sounds better than napping or munching and watching TV, you are a true athlete. Knowing that Jordan is becoming a great athlete who is able to balance school work and very little free time brings much joy to me. High school is changing her for the better and I would like to think playing her sports takes a great toll on that reason, so if you ask me if playing a sport in high school is worth it, my response will be it totally is. And if you ask Jordan she would say, “I do believe playing sports is worth losing free time because after playing that sport with that team you make friends and then doing that sport starts to feel like your free time.”
Posted: March 5th, 2018
Korea in the Olympics
by Hailey Parker
The conflict between North and South Korea has been rising to a boil. Tensions between both sides are higher than ever, but somehow, some way, North and South Korea have been approved by the IOC to march and compete together in the 2018 Olympics.
While the IOC will not usually allow a country with human rights violations and wars to compete in the Olympics, and as it is well known, North Korea has violated many human rights. The past 12 months, they have been firing test rockets and South Korea has been planning to do joint military exercises. Yet both teams are willing to set these practices aside to compete in the Olympics. The reasoning behind the decision is unclear, but North and South Korea may be ready to quit the conflicts. The IOC is prepared to allocate spots for sports that the deadlines have already passed. For the first time in Olympic history, the two teams will be unified for a sport: Women's Ice HockeyPresident Bach of the IOC stated that the reason behind all this allocation and sympathy is ¨The Olympic spirit is about respect, dialogue and understanding. The Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 are hopefully opening the door to a brighter future on the Korean peninsula, and inviting the world to join in a celebration of hope.¨. He then continued to say that “The Olympic Games show us what the world could look like, if we were all guided by the Olympic spirit of respect and understanding. This is the Olympic message that will go from PyeongChang to the world.”. As evidenced by Bach´s statement, the IOC hopes that by allowing the Korean countries to participate in the Olympics, then the possibility for forgiveness and reconciliation is bound to follow. The likelihood of an attack on the Olympics is also severely lessened by North and South Korea being allowed to participate. While it´s unclear whether the plan will actually succeed or not, the fact is that North and South Korea will indeed be participating in the 2018 Olympics, and as a team.
Posted: February 8th, 2018
Oak Hills Announces National Signing Day
Oak Hills Athletics is proud to announce our 17 student-athletes for today's Collegiate Signing Day. Congratulations to our student-athletes and their families!
Front Row L to R:
Haley Miller - Women’s Soccer - Ohio University
Brooke Chaille - Women’s Soccer - Mt St Joseph University
Sophie Denier - Women’s Soccer - Thomas More College
Hannah Bacon - Women’s Soccer - Elmhurst College
Abby Schutte - Women’s Volleyball - Thomas More College
Elizabeth Cron - Women’s Diving - University of Chicago
Back Row L to R:
Ashley Schloemer - Women’s Soccer - Thomas More College
Ashleigh Cronin - Women’s Soccer - Northern Kentucky University
Jake Woycke - Football - Ohio Dominican University
Griffin Kain - Baseball - Northern Kentucky University
Kate Schaible - Women’s Volleyball - Anderson University
Mitchell Luken - Men’s Cross Country - Heidelberg University
Chance Schneider - Men’s Track & Field - University of Mt. Olive
Rachael Moody - Women’s Basketball - Mt St Joseph University
Nick Malone - Football - Mt St Joseph University
Julianne Adams - Women’s Basketball - Marian University
Not pictured: Kara Heckmuller - Women’s Volleyball - Manchester University
Posted: February 8th, 2018
North and South Korea unite for unified 2018 Winter Olympics
by Makayla Head
North and South Korea have come to an agreement this year for the Winter Olympics even through all the controversy they have had for over a decade. They have decided to walk under the same flag at the Winter Olympics as well as fielding a joint women’s ice hockey team. The background of what’s been going on between the two you wouldn’t find this a significant as others do. Basically, North and South Korea have had high tensions due to North’s nuclear missiles test and other conflicting subjects.
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The Winter Olympic games will begin on February 9 in Pyeongchang. South Korea and the women’s ice hockey team will be the first combined Korean team for the Olympics. They will also be the first unified team since their athletes played together in 1991. The country's delegations will march in the opening ceremony Behind a “unified Korea” flag that shows no individualism between the two nations. The North will send 230 supporters to the games and negotiators agreed that supporters of both sides would root together for athletes from both countries.The two countries also agreed on Wednesday that their skiing teams would train together in the Masikryong ski resort in North Korea. The North’s delegation would include at least 550 people. The plan is for the north's athletes to enter south over a land border on the first of February to discuss and finalize all the information.
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Both sides came together this year for the Winter Olympics because they are wanting to promote peace, dialogue and cooperation. Even though the three year conflict in the early 1950s that they were going through ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. They were against each other for years up until now because the leaders of each side decided to come to an appeasement this year.