After the break, the AAA boys got things rolling again. Like the girls AA event, the team championship was not expected to be a contest, but the individual title was considered up for grabs. The first check-point, again at the bottom of the main hill, showed Jay Urse, Tyler Devault, and Keith Rand in a tight grouping, followed closely by Richard Kitching, Justin Cox, and Stephen Hiser. Later, at the 1 3/4 mile area, it had become clear that the tight 6 or 7 man race that had been expected was not to be. Somewhere up on top of the hill, Fairmont Senior's Jay Urse had taken complete control of the race and had built quite a lead. Rand and Devault had gapped the remainder of the field in their second and third place spots, with Shane Ruggles and Ryan Smith rounding out the top 5. Not much had changed as they left the woods and crossed the water. Smith had closed the gap substantially on Ruggles. As the leader passed down the long finishing chute, a quick glance at my watch revealed that not only was Fairmont Senior's Jay Urse winning the race by a wide margin, he was doing it in record fashion. His outstanding time of 17:17 shattered the previous course record. Morgantown's Keith Rand held off East Fairmont's Tyler Devault for second, and in the process, the two gave the NCAC a top three sweep. Brooke's Ryan Smith used a late surge to go around Hampshire's Shane Ruggles to claim the fourth spot. Ruggles maintained the fifth position. John Marshall's Corey Neal claimed the sixth spot. Huntington's Justin Cox grabbed seventh. Ben Lukowski of St. Albans took the number eight position. Zack Beckett of Cabell Midland climbed up to the ninth position, and North Marion's Justin Marietta used a strong finish to climb into the tenth and final all-state spot. In the team event, Cabell Midland walked away with an easy title, as expected, and Fairmont Senior claimed the second place spot as expected. Midland won the meet with quality depth. They only placed one runner on the all-state team, but had three others come in between 11th and 20th to put to rest any doubts about who was going to win this day. The RunWV MVP for the Boys AAA 2000 State Championship is Eric Ferguson. Ferguson's role in winning the MVP was not the typical "step-it-up to move our team up the standings" race that we typically award. His was in a similar vein, but it turned into the "step-it-up to preserve our team's place in the standings." Eric Ferguson had been picked to place 72nd in the state meet. He responded by finishing 24th, only a 48 place improvement. His emergence in this meet was necessary because two other members of his team finished well-below their slated positions. His performance saved 37 team points for George Washington and in the process prevented his team from falling from third into seventh place. Congratulations to Jay Urse, to Cabell Midland, and to Eric Ferguson.

So how did RunWV do on our predictions? We again missed the individual champion, but 8 of our top 10 finished in the top 10. 11 of our top 15 finished in the top 15, and 20 of our top 25 finished in the top 25. So, we offer our congratulations to those who foiled us: Zack Beckett and Justin Marietta for climbing into the top 10; Marietta again, Chris Walsh, Chris Perry, and Jon Nelson for jumping into the top 15; and Derek Bolyard, Forrest Boggess, Andy Wilmoth, Timmy Smith, and Eric Ferguson for slipping into the top 25. The big mover for the day was, of course, Eric Ferguson. As mentioned before Ferguson climbed from a predicted finish of 72nd to an actual finish of 24th, a whopping 48 place improvement. On the team side of things, we correctly picked the top three while Preston moved up one position and Morgantown moved up three spots.