At the beginning of the Cross Country season I made a statement that I believed Wetzel and Tyler county schools had two of the top 10 runners in the state in Class A. As proven by the results at the State Championships I was right. Not only did we have two runners in the top 10 we had three. Tyler Consolidated’s Amos Kimble stole the show in several races this past season and captured both the Regional and State titles to earn his way as the top runner in Class A in the state. He will be back next year to defend his titles. Amos is a hard worker who demonstrated that the off season makes a difference. Training for distance is a year round job. Not only did he finish number one in Class A, he also had a better time than the Class AA winner. And among all runners including AAA he was 8th best.

Magnolia’s Landen Davis was 6th overall in Class A after finishing 2nd in 2023 and the Silver Knights Travis Moore, an up and coming sophomore ran a close 7th, all made the top 10. Magnolia’s fourth place finish and the Silver Knights fifth place finish shows both programs are on the rise. Congratulations to both teams, coaches and individual award winners.

The River Pilots made the Ohio playoffs despite finishing the season with a 4-6 regular season record. They played a great game up at Steubenville against a good Central Catholic team and led most of the way before falling in OT to the 7-3 Crusaders. Valley and Tyler Consolidated are both playoff bound. Valley finished with an 8-2 regular season record and ended in the number 13 spot and will be pitted against number 4 seeded Doddridge County in a first round game at the Bulldogs field. Number 6 Tyler Consolidated got in with a 6-4 record and will host number 11 Wirt County . Magnolia barely missed getting in with a 4-6 record. The Blue Eagles used a late season surge to win four of their last five games, but it wasn’t quite enough as a 10th of a point separated them from the 16th and final spot. Tyler Consolidated nearly got a win on Friday against a tough Doddridge County team but fell by a point 21-20. Valley’s only two losses came to Cameron and Magnolia and two of their wins came by forfeit from in county rivals Paden City and Hundred who both had trouble fielding a team. Good luck to both local teams as they hit the playoff trail.

In girls volleyball Magnolia and Tyler Consolidated both made it to the state tournament which started yesterday in Charleston. Magnolia played as a Class A team all season, while the Silver Knights played under protest in the AA division. After the playoffs started and the Silver Knights had advanced, they received notice that a court decision had been rendered which moved them back to single A. They had already won a game in AA and were preparing to take the bus trip to Oak Glen high school when the ruling came down from Judge Wilson in circuit court that they were illegally classified in AA and should be single A. That threw a hitch in the playoff picture and the Silver Knights were then pitted against St. Marys in single A, a team Magnolia had supposedly eliminated in the sectional championship a few days earlier. The Knights easily defeated the Blue Devils in three straight sets and then advanced to regional play where they were supposed to visit Trinity Christian. However prior to that contest another ruling came down in Trinity’s favor saying they would play St. Marys instead of Tyler, giving the Blue Devils their third chance to stay alive in tournament play. That ruling left Tyler with no one to play. It was then unsure if they would go back to AA or figure out who to play in single A. Now remember St. Marys had already been eliminated from tournament play two times by Magnolia and Tyler. Following Magnolia’s win over St. Marys the Blue Eagles moved on to defeat Madonna to a berth in the single A championship round at Charleston. This court induced mess all occurred as a result of false classifications by the WVSSAC who took no responsibility and failed to correct the error early in the year. St. Marys in their third try at staying alive in the tournament, eliminated Trinity Christian and moved into the state championship picture. That left Tyler with nowhere to go and no one to play. The final ruling came down Friday afternoon. The WSSAC released a state tournament bracket that seeded the Silver Knights 9th in a new playoff format and scheduled them to play St. Marys in the first round of the championship tournament. St. Marys was seeded 8th meaning they would play the Knights for the right to play the number one seed East Hardy. The Tyler/St. Marys match was scheduled for the second match of the morning on Tuesday, November 12. Immediately following was to be the third match between the winner and East Hardy and from there the tournament was to join the original layout.

So what it all breaks down to is Tyler Consolidated never played a regional game during the playoffs due to dropping down to Class A while St. Marys was originally eliminated in sectional play by Magnolia, but received three more chances following court rulings in Pleasants County and Monongalia County and ended up as Regional champion and advancing to the state tournament. However with the tournament looming and the WVSSAC in a bind they quickly fixed the problem that should have been rectified much sooner. With everything set to go on Tuesday morning another announcement came down from the WVSSAC on Sunday, November 10, that the WVSSAC Class A Volleyball tournament is postponed indefinitely due to pending litigation. Seems that the number 1 seed team didn’t like the idea that they might have to play Tyler Consolidated on Tuesday, so they filed for an injunction asking that Tyler be eliminated from the Class A event. That’s where we stand as of this writing. Hopefully it will get resolved and the tournament can be played soon.

Congratulations to Hundred high school. The football team had hit a low point in the season and due to injuries were forced to forfeit one of their last three games and another was canceled due to the opposition ending their season early. However the team had enough healthy bodies to finish their season on Friday night against Richwood and come away with a nice hard fought overtime win.The Hornets put together a nice effort in what could be their last game ever at Cosgray field due to the looming consolidation proposal. The win on senior night gave the home fans something to cheer about and remember for years to come!

Congratulations to the Tyler Consolidated cheerleaders who earned a trip to the state cheerleading championships at the regional competition on Saturday.