The final race of the day had been slated to be the most exciting team event of the day, with three teams considered likely candidates to walk away with the title and a fourth having an outside shot. We'll start with the individual race. As expected, susan and Jennifer Davis took out hard and had built a lead by the time they reached the hill. However, since the same thing had happened at the Forest Festival, certainly nothing had been decided. At this early stage, Zaia Wharton was holding the third spot, followed by Rachel Carden and Ashley Varian. After coming off the hill, it was now evident that only two people had a chance to win this race, that being Susan and Jennifer Davis. The twins had amassed an incredibly large lead on the remainder of the field. Eventually, the rest of the field made it to the 1 3/4 mile point, and it was Elkins teammates Wharton and Varian starting to pull away from the field. Rachel Carden was holding onto the fifth spot narrowly over Stephanie Hatfield and Amanda Conrad. Standing at the final creek crossing, it appeared that Susan Davis had built a bit of a gap between herself and Jennifer, and their collective lead over the field had grown even more. As the next batch of girls started to emerge to cross the creek, Carden came out of the woods, under the tape, and off the course. She had dropped out for reasons unknown to RunWV. Ashley Varian had taken control of third place and Zaia Wharton was clinging to fourth over a now-charging Amanda Conrad. At the finish line, it was Susan Davis with an outstanding time of 20:07, over a minute faster than her time at the Forest Festival. Jennifer Davis easily claimed the second spot (also over a minute faster). The Davis' domination of the race was evident in that 1:16 elapsed before the third place runner came through. Ashley Varian continued her strong second half of the season with her third place finish. Zaia Wharton was able to hang on to the fourth position. East Fairmont's Amanda Conrad claimed the fifth spot. Jumping up in the last mile to take sixth place was Roane's Stephanie Eastman. This was Roane's first year for Cross Country. Stephanie Hatfield of Robert C. Byrd grabbed the seventh spot. Eighth was claimed by Morgantown's Leah Erenrich. Hedgesville's Brittany Banks nabbed ninth, and the tenth and final All-State position was taken by Morgantown's Karen Wigal. On the team end of things, the great race never materialized. East Fairmont, the predicted winner, actually scored better than predicted. However, the pack-running mentatlity of Parkersburg High School worked to their advantage. They still ran as a pack, they just ran as a faster pack than anticipated and ended up winning by a solid 13 points. Similar to Cabell Midland in the boys race, Parkersburg didn't have a single member on the all-state team. They did, however, place fiver runners between 13th and 22nd. At that point, there really wasn't much anyone else can do. Parkersburg's victory, along with Midland's, shows everyone out there that a team does not have to have a superstar to succeed. Cross Country is indeed a team sport, and Parkersburg displayed that perfectly today. The RunWV MVP for the AAA Girls 2000 State Championship is Jenny Campbell of Parkersburg. Jenny was picked to finish 41st and score 28 team points. Instead, she finished 22nd and scored 15 team points. Those 13 points are the exact difference between first place Parkersburg and second place East Fairmont. Congratulations to Susan Davis (now you both have one), Parkersburg's girls, and Jenny Campbell.

So, how did RunWV do on our predictions. Well, we knew this was going to be tough, and our coin came up wrong. We missed the team champ. Actually, the top 4 were who we said they'd be, but nobody was in the right place. Individually, we finally got an individual champion right. Only one out of four this year, but we did get three out of four team champs right. In this race 8 of our top 10 finished in the top 10 (another was in the top 10 when she dropped out). 12 of our top 15 finished in the top 15, and 19 of our top 25 finished in the top 25. So, again we congratulate those who moved into those positions: Stephanie Eastman and Karen Wigal for getting into the top 10; Hope Noland, Diane Kenaston, and Nicole Dorinzi for jumping into the top 15, and Chelsea Metheny, McCall Cagle, Amy Bugyis, Aleacha McClintic, Jenny Campbell, and Kate Harlow for taking the spots in the top 25. The big mover of the day was George Washington's McCall Cagle. Cagle had been picked to finish 51st, and climbed all the way into 17th place. On the team end of things, Parkersburg was supposed to finish a very close third, but they ended up scoring a convincing win. East Fairmont was supposed to take a narrow win, but ended up a solid second. Morgantown was supposed to grad the number two spot, but finished fourth, and Elkins was supposed to be fourth but got third. All the right teams, all the wrong places. Everyone else was in the right place except Preston and Hampshire who swapped fifth and seventh places.