The final event of the day was the A-AA Boys. In reality, it was possibly the least anticipated as well. Ravenswood's boys were expected to take a relatively easy victory, and Justin Simpson had not been challendged all season individually. The gun fired, and the expected front-runners quickly moved...well...to the front. At the bottom of the hill, Scott Gemberling held a slight lead over Justin Simpson, Josh Sheets, Chris Snell, and Jayson Lafferre. Up top, near the mile mark, Justin Simpson had taken the lead and stretched to roughly a 4 second lead over Josh Sheets, with Scott Gemberling right on his heels. At 1.8 miles, Justin Simpson had increased his lead slightly, holding a 6 to 8 second lead over Josh Sheets. Sheets had generated a gap between himself and the next runners. Scott Gemberling was clinging to 3rd, with Chris Snell close behind. Jon Riffle had solid control of 5th, with Kenny Beerbower in 6th. Chris Herron was running in 7th, with Woody Snoberger right behind in 8th. The Ravenswood duo of Adam Benford and Isaac Andrick held 9th and 10th. Between the creeks, nothing much had changed. Justin Simpson had increased his lead to 14 seconds, and looked to be well on his way to victory. The only other change in the top 6 was that Kenny Beerbower had started closing the gap on Jon Riffle. Coming out of the final creek crossing, Justin Simpson had continued to expand his lead, now nearing 20 seconds. Josh Sheets was still a very solid 2nd. Scott Gemberling was still in 3rd with Chris Snell still right behind. Jon Riffle had maintained his 5th place position, but Kenny Beerbower was now only a second or two behind. Adam Benford had moved up into 7th place. Woody Snoberger was in 8th, Isaac Andrick held 9th, and Kelby Gray had moved into 10th. At the finish line, it was Justin Simpson reclaiming the course record that Tyler Devault had taken from him earlier in the day. Justin became the first high school runner to ever tour the course in under 17 minutes with his time of 16:54. With Justin Simpson out of reach, and no one else close to him, Josh Sheets cruised in to second place with a time of 17:27. Chris Snell finished very strong down the stretch to take 3rd in 17:40. Scott Gemberling took home 4th in 17:45. Kenny Beerbower used a strong last half-mile to take the 5th position. Jon Riffle held onto 6th. Adam Benford kept his 7th place spot. Woody Snoberger maintained his 8th place position. Isaac Andrick and Kelby Gray took 9th and 10th to give Ravenswood four members on the All-State team.

Having four members on the All-State team left little doubt that Ravenswood would waltz easily to their second consecutive title. The battle for second was expected to be close, and it was. Grafton featured three runners in the top 15, while Ritchie only placed one in that range, but Ritchie used its season-long strategy of pack-running to place four runners between 17th and 25th. That was enough to claim a five point edge over Grafton when all was said and done. RunWV's MVP for the meet is Ritchie's Straten Schemel. Straten was slated to finish 34th, but came through in 20th, picking up 11 team points in the process. That was enough to turn what would have been a 6 point loss into a 5 point win. Congratulations to Justin Simpson, Ravenswood, and Straten Schemel.

So how did RunWV do in our predictions? Teamwise, Ravenswood came through for us, giving us three of the four team champions. Ritchie and Grafton finished in 2nd and 3rd as they were supposed to, just in the opposite order. Oak Glen ran without their number 2 runner, and that caused them a fall from their projected 4th place finish to 6th. Scott performed very well in climbing into 4th. The remainder of the field finished as expected. Individually, we picked the champion correctly, giving us three of the four individual champions. Only 7 of our top 10 finished in the top 10, but each of them was in the top 15. 14 of our top 15 finished in the top 15, and the one that didn't finished 16th. 19 of our top 25 finished in the top 25, and again one of the missing runners didn't complete the race. This time, he didn't even start due to an injury. Congratulations to the six runners who jumped into the top 25: Straten Schemel, Mike Smutko, Michael Navarro, Nathan Gray, Jason Sheets, and Clifton Umstead. The big mover of the day was Scott's Jason Sheets. Jason was pegged for a 40th place finish, but climbed all the way into 24th, a 16 place gain.