The AAA Boys opened the afternoon session. The team race was not expected to be much of a race. The individual race was expected to be between three teammates. The start was clean, and we were off to the mile mark for our first evaluation of the situation. At the mile mark, Eric Cooper held a narrow lead over Jon Nelson. Joel McMullen and Dameon Hall were running in 3rd and 4th. Chad Hooten was in 5th. Jesse Vernon was holding 6th. Bryan Talerico was in 7th. Tim Andrew was in 8th. Jonathan Miller was in 9th, and Jon Diamond was in 10th. Teamwise Cabell Midland looked very strong. Fairmont Senior had a couple up front, but the runners were too tightly packed together for us to keep up writing them down. So, we really weren't able to get a feel for what was going on other than that Midland was dominating.

At the two mile mark, there had been some changes. Jon Nelson had taken over the lead, but Eric Cooper was right on his heels. Jesse Vernon had moved up to third. Greg Cooke had climbed all the way up to 4th. Tim Andrew had moved up to 5th. Andy Frankling had climbed into 6th. Chad Hooten was in 7th. Daniel Rodgers had moved up to 8th. Jon Diamond was in 9th, and Bryan Talerico was in 10th. In the team race, Cabell Midland continued to dominate, holding 4 of the top 9 positions. University held 3 of the top 15. It was not readily apparent who was winning the battle for 2nd. It was obvious that the door had been left open for teams outside our predicted top three for climb as high as 2nd place.

At the finish, it was Jon Nelson holding off Eric Cooper for the win. Tim Andrew ran very strong over the last mile to climb up to 3rd. Andy Franklin continued his surge and finished 4th. Greg Cooke claimed 5th, giving Cabell Midland three of the top five finishers. Jeese Vernon finished right on his heels in 6th. Chad Hooten claimed 7th. Bryan Talerico finished 8th. Ryan Skotnicki moved up in the last mile to take 9th. Daniel Rodgers rounded out the All-State roster. On the team end of things, Cabell Midland's domination became even more pronounced over the last mile. They finished with a phenomenal team total of only 31 points, 83 points better than the 2nd place team. They had 7 runners finish before any other team had 3. Fairmont Senior used solid performances from nearly its entire roster to climb up and take a surprise 2nd place.

We're going to go with Co-MVP's for this race. Fairmont Senior and Jefferson each climbed two spots in the team rankings, and they each had one person who was more instrumental in that climb than others. For Fairmont Senior, it was Zac Swiger. Zac was predicted to finish 37th and moved up to 24th. He picked up 11 team points in the process. For Jefferson, it was Steve Reynolds. Steve was predicted to finish 77th and climbed all the way up to 48th, picking up enough team points along the way for Jefferson to scoot past both Parkersburg South and Elkins. Congratulations go out to Jon Nelson, Cabell Midland, Zac Swiger, and Steve Reynolds.

How did RunWV do on our predictions. We picked the team champion correctly, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't. Our 4th and 5th jumped up to take 2nd and 3rd. Our 2nd and 3rd fell to 4th and 5th. Our 6th through 9th jumbled themselves up a little, and our 10th through 12th finished as expected. Individually, we only 7 of our top 10 finished in the top 10. 12 of our top 15 finished in the top 15. 20 of our top 25 finished in the top 25. So, we offer our congratulations to the three guys who jumped up and grabbed an All-State Position. They were Jesse Vernon, Ryan Skotnicki, and Daniel Rodgers. We also congratulate the five who climbed into the top 25. They are Elkins' Wayne Fasig (predicted 28th, got 11th), Cabell Midland's Jon Diamond (predicted 31st, got 14th), Cabell Midland's Brian Bridgewater (predicted 26th, got 20th), Cabell Midland's Sean Beckett (predicted 39th, got 21st), and Fairmont Senior's Zac Swiger (predicted 37th, got 24th). The Big Mover of the day was Jefferson's Steve Reynolds, who was predicted 77th and finished in 49th.