Meet: AAA Boys State Meet Location: Williamstown, WV Date: October 31, 1998 After the noon break, the AAA squads were set to go, and the now somewhat raucous crowd was prepared for what was likely to be the best individual race of the day. Any of four runners could walk away with the title. Sprinting out at the start for an early lead were Brian Davis and Josh Campbell of Musselman and Jonathan Wright of East Fairmont. At the half-mile mark, Huntington's Larry Atkins had taken the lead and was followed by defending champion Ricky Moore of Wheeling Park and Kevin Batey of Cabell Midland. A blistering pace was set through the first mile as Atkins covered the first mile in 4:45. Moore was only one second back and Mikey Guinn of St. Albans was only five seconds back. Batey and Freshman Kenny Beerbower of Fairmont Senior closed out the top five at the mile mark. By mile two, Ricky Moore was showing why he was RunWV.com's prerace favorite as he had passed Atkins and built a ten second lead, crossing the two-mile mark at 10:07. Atkins was holding onto second with a two-mile split of 10:17. Guinn was still third at 10:21, Beerbower fourth at 10:28, with Batey dropping to fifth at 10:38. The last mile saw Moore extend his lead even further, and as he ran down the finishing stretch, the only question was if he would run the course in under sixteen minutes. The answer: Yes, he would. Wheeling Park's Ricky Moore became the third defending champion to retain his crown with a phenomenal time of 15:57. Mikey Guinn of St. Albans moved into the second spot with a finishing time of 16:19. Larry Atkins of Huntington claimed the third position in 16:22. Kenny Beerbower of Fairmont Senior placed fourth in 16:29. Cabell Midland's Zach Beckett passed a teammate just before the finish line to take the fifth spot with a time of 16:53. Rounding out the All-State team were Cabell Midland's Kevin Batey in sixth with a time of 16:55, John Mallory of Parkersburg in seventh in 16:57, Brian Streisel of Hampshire in eighth in 17:01, Oak Hill's Jonathan Calhoun in ninth in 17:04, and University's Stephen Hiser in tenth in 17:05. Only three of the top ten were seniors (Moore, Guinn, and Batey), and on a very promising note for the next few years, three were Freshmen (Beerbower, Calhoun, and Hiser). In the team competition, St. Albans easily outdistanced their competitors with a team score of 45 points. Hampshire had outstanding performances by its runners to edge Cabell Midland for second place by a score of 60 to 64. How did RunWV.com do with our AAA Boys predictions. Again, we picked the individual and team champions correctly, and we did pick who the top four would be correctly (we did have second and third switched). However, only ten of our predicted top fifteen finished in the actual top fifteen. Our surprises in this race were Zach Beckett of Cabell Midland who got fifth (picked 16th), Ben Lukowski of St. Albans who placed 14th (picked 17th), Justin Rogers of Cabell Midland who finished 13th (picked 26th), David Deitz of Hampshire who finished 12th (picked 30th), and our biggest surprise of the day, Oak Hill's fabulous freshman Jonathan Calhoun who finished ninth after being predicted to finish in 40th place. Jonathon, our apologies, you may shove that one in our collective face! Good job. TEAM SCORES ----------------------------------- 1. St. Albans SA 45 2. Hampshire HAMP 60 3. Cabell Midland CM 64 4. Fairmont Senior FS 101 5. Morgantown MGT 129 6. Wheeling Park WP 143 7. Buckhannon-Upshur BU 196 8. George Washington GW 202 9. Hedgesville HED 218 10. Capital CAP 224 Incomplete -- Brooke (BRO), East Fairmont (EF), Huntington (HUNT), Musselman (MUSS), North Marion (NM), Oak Hill (OH), Parkersburg (PHS), Ripley (RIP), University (UHS) INDIVIDUAL RESULTS Place Name School YR Time --------------------------------------------- 1. Ricky Moore WP 12 15:57 2. Mikey Guinn SA 12 16:19 3. Larry Atkins HUNT 11 16:22 4. Kenny Beerbower FS 09 16:23 5. Zach Beckett CM 10 16:53 6. Kevin Batey CM 12 16:55 7. John Mallory PHS 11 16:57 8. Brian Streisel HAMP 11 17:01 9. Jonathan Calhoun OH 09 17:04 10. Stephen Hiser UHS 09 17:05 11. Shawn Greene SA 11 17:15 12. David Deitz HAMP 11 17:19 13. Justin Rogers CM 10 17:21 14. Ben Lukowski SA 09 17:22 15. Shane Ruggles HAMP 10 17:28 16. Bryce Jarrell SA 12 17:33 17. Justin Marietta NM 10 17:36 18. Keith Rand MGT 09 17:36 19. Scott Johnson SA 11 17:37 20. Eric Barnes PHS 12 17:38 21. Ross Tennant BRO 12 17:39 22. Jonathan Wright EF 11 17:40 23. Brian Bergstrom BU 12 17:42 24. Brent Garrett CAP 11 17:47 25. Aaron Hott HAMP 11 17:47 26. Michael Porter HAMP 12 17:49 27. Pat Riley CM 12 17:50 28. Adam Miller FS 11 17:50 29. Andy Wilmoth FS 09 17:51 30. Ben Russell MGT 12 17:52 31. Adam Menear MGT 11 17:55 32. Kenneth Hopper GW 09 17:56 33. Dennis Simmons RIP 12 17:57 34. Seth Crislip GW 11 17:58 35. Brad Kohler CAP 10 17:59 36. Chris Bias CM 12 17:59 37. Derek Nuzum FS 11 18:00 38. Brian Davis MUSS 11 18:04 39. Justin Underwood FS 10 18:05 40. Zacc Custer HED 12 18:07 41. Bob Conde BU 12 18:10 42. Daran Gaus WP 12 18:11 43. Josh Campbell MUSS 11 18:12 44. Joe Eshbach FS 09 18:14 45. Paul Pascoli WP 11 18:16 46. Brandon Staten MGT 12 18:20 47. Jacob Skousen MGT 10 18:22 48. Matt Gayda WP 12 18:24 49. Matt Byers HED 12 18:25 50. Stewart Sleime WP 09 18:26 51. Seth Lawson MGT 10 18:31 52. John Burke WP 10 18:32 53. Matt Reynolds GW 12 18:34 54. David Colbert HAMP 12 18:36 55. John Cannon HED 10 18:37 56. Matthew Gallery HAMP 10 18:39 57. Matt Reed CM 11 18:40 58. Darin Clark WP 11 18:43 59. Derrek Mullinix HED 12 18:46 60. Trent Casto BU 11 18:48 61. James Wagner BU 11 18:53 62. Chris Perry BU 10 18:54 63. Jansen Arnold SA 09 18:55 64. Sean Lyons MGT 09 18:59 65. Justin Cox CM 10 19:01 66. James Quarles GW 11 19:15 67. Justin Cimback GW 10 19:25 68. Joe Christian CAP 11 19:28 69. Jeff Richmond HED 12 19:38 70. Paul Creamer SA 09 19:47 71. Gary Bonnett BU 12 20:00 72. Jay Urse FS 10 20:02 73. Eric McClain CAP 09 20:07 74. Rico Greenhouse CAP 09 20:14 75. Stephen Page CAP 09 20:25 76. Brandon Johnson CAP 10 20:25 77. Brad Wingler BU 09 20:26 78. Derrick Shukais GW 11 20:28 79. Eric Roberts GW 10 21:19 80. Mark Mann HED 10 23:03