The Class AAA Boys was closed out the day's festivities. Conditions remained warm but plenty tolerable. In the team race, Elkins was expected to run away with the Title, and they did just that, winning by 38 points. The race for 2nd wasn't expected to be close either, but it was very close...a tie in fact, and Bridgeport pulled off the surprise 2nd place finish. Individually, Elkins' Trevor George was the very heavy favorite, and he came through with the nearly 22 second victory. I figured there were 4 candidates for the 2nd spot, and two of those guys did indeed battle all the way to the line for that spot with Keyser's Luca Altobello just holding off Winfield's Trace Marshall for the spot.

I didn't get out of the AA awards ceremony until well into this race. I was able to make it up the hill to get a 2 mile mark look at things. Unfortunately, the NFHS feed did not have video anywhere along the way to help me out. I do know that Elkins' Trevor George had moved to the front by the time they re-entered the starting field early in the race.

From the radio feed, at the Mile Mark, Trevor George was in front, Fairmont Senior's Landon Jones was in 2nd, Keyser's Luca Altobello was in 3rd, Winfield's Trace Marshall was in 4th, and Bridgeport's Troy Zorick was in 5th.

At the two mile mark, I made it back out for this spot. Trevor George was in complete control of the lead, coming through at 10:27. Luca Altobello had a slight lead over Trace Marshall for the 2nd spot with both at 10:44. They had broken away from the other contenders. Troy Zorick was in 4th at 10:53, just ahead of Landon Jones in 5th at 10:54. Elkins' Joshua Bodkins was in 6th at 11:02. Grafton's Colson Annon was in 7th at the front of a trio at 11:05 with Capital's Micah Hale in 8th and Herbert Hoover's Dylan Straight in 9th. Bridgeport's William Northey was in 10th at 11:07. Elkins' Treven Schaefer was in 11th at 11:13. Elkins' Benjamin Tenney was in 12th at 11:19 with Shady Spring's Ethan Dowdy matching that time in 13th. Herbert Hoover's Samuel Born was right on their heels in 14th at 11:20. Grafton's Chase Maier was in 15th at 11:25. Lewis' Brody Skinner was in 16th at 11:32 with Hampshire's Wyatt Thorne matching that in 17th. Fairmont Senior's Josiah Brannen was in 18th at 11:34. Hampshire's Ethan Richman was in 19th at 11:35, and Bridgeport's Parker Muncy was in 20th at 11:36.

Coming onto the track, Trevor George had further extended his lead and took the line unchallenged at 15:57. Luca Altobello and Trace Marshall came onto the track together and battled the rest of the way in. Altobello had a slight advantage as the started to exit the final turn. Marshall tried to slingshot past, but Altobello drifted wide to block just a bit. Marshall made another run and pulled ever so slightly ahead for about 10 meters before Altobello had one more push to take the runner-up spot in the final 10 meters. Both recorded 16:19 with Altobello getting the spot by 0.17 seconds. Troy Zorick held the 4th spot in 16:42 with Landon Jones in 5th in 16:44. Colson Annon had a big finish to move into 6th in 16:49. Dylan Straight moved up to 7th in 16:53. Micah Hale took the 8th spot in 16:55. William Northey and Treven Schaefer battled over the last 200 meters with Northey taking the 9th spot in 16:56 with Schaefer in 10th in 16:57. The were separated by just 0.22, though. Joshua Bodkins held the 11th spot in 17:05. Samuel Born moved up to 12th in 17:17. Chase Maier made a couple passes in the final 75 meters to take 13th in 17:25. Ethan Dowdy was 14th in 17:27. with Benjamin Tenney 15th in 17:29. Wyatt Thorne took the 16th spot in 17:31 with Brody Skinner in 17th in 17:32. Ethan Richman took 18th in 17:35. Elkins' Preston Nixon came up to 19th in 17:36, and Parker Muncy took the final medal in 17:39.

How did RunWV do on the predictions? I'm going to say not very good. I got the Team Champion, but that was a surprise to no one. There was a lot of movement after that. 2 and 3 swapped despite not being expected to be a close race. Only 1st and 9th through 12th finished where predicted. There were two teams that finished 2 or more spots different than predicted. Individually, I got the Champion, but my 2 and 3 swapped and my 4 and 5 swapped. Things were pretty good through 6, but then it fell apart, and I only ended up getting 6 of the top 10. I don't really like 8. 7 makes me kind of mad. 6 is...just bad. That did improved to 12 of 15 but then only ended at 21 of 25, which isn't terrible, but I like at least 22. On average, runners finished within 8.01 places of their predicted finish. That's 0.70 worse than last year. One runner added over 0.6 to this year's number. He was injured during the race but hobbled to the finish. In all, six runners finished 20 or more places off where they were predicted. The four runners who rose to podium positions were Herbert Hoover's Dylan Straight (picked 18th, got 7th), Capital's Micah Hale (picked 16th, got 8th), Bridgeport's William Northey (picked 14th, got 9th), and Elkins' Treven Schaefer (picked 17th, got 10th). Those who climbed into the top 25 were Elkins' Preston Nixon (picked 26th, got 19th), East Fairmont's Bryler Wilson (picked 27th, got 21st), Elkins' Logan Jones (picked 36th, got 23rd), and Grafton's Cameron Gray (picked 29th, got 25th). The biggest mover of the day was Bridgeport's Daniel Yearego, who climbed a whopping 30 places from a predicted 81st place finish to an actual 51st place finish. From a team standpoint, I'm doing that a bit differently this year. The team that scored the largest percentage better than their predicted score gets that nod rather than the team that lowered their score by the most points. That puts the nod in the hands of Bridgeport, who outperformed by a huge 29.3%.

In searching for the MVP, Elkins won by so much, I that it can't be there. Obviously with Bridgeport rising from a distant 3rd prediction to taking that 2nd podium spot on the tie-breaker is where I have to end up. Every single guy on their team exceeded their predicted spot by at least 1 place. It would be easy to look at the #6 guy, Cole Phillips, and say, that's the tie-breaker, he only beat Grafton's #5 by 3 places and less than 4 seconds. It would be easy to pick Troy Zorick. He moved up a very difficult point near the top of the field. But I'm going to look at the finish line. What happend and when did it happen? They had a guy that picked up at least 2 spots in the final 100 meters including that one final crucial spot with just about 15 yards to go and winning that spot by just 0.27 seconds. Of course, he also beat 29 other guys that he wasn't supposed to beat. For his tremendous rise up the ranks and for gaining that one final point in the last few seconds of the race, the 2025 RunWV MVP is Bridgeport's Daniel Yearego.

I offer my congratulations to the Elkins boys. You were the big dog all season long. You had the target on your back all season long. You weren't completely healthy for pretty much the entirety of the season, but your depth and development made that a non-issue. You obliterated the field and showed just why you were #1.

I offer my congratulations to Trevor George. Unlike last year, you didn't have to come from way behind to take the win. You took the lead early and expanded it throughout. You got to enjoy and celebrate your victory well before crossing the finish line. For my $0.02, it was the best boys' race of the day given how race and course conditions changed over the course of the day.

I offer my congratulations to the boys who shook up the predictions. You prove what I try to tell people every year. Rankings and predictions don't mean anything. That's why we run the race.