Athlete of the Week - Jacob Burcham

The AotW for May 23-29 is Jacob Burcham of Cabell Midland. Usually I lead the AotW (when I get around to doing it, right?) with a picture, but the picture for this week has been found EVERYWHERE: Letsrun, Flotrack, Milesplit, Tristateracer, Facebook... "The Dive" In a weekend that will go as the greatest triple in the history of the WV State Track Meet (until next year), that picture captured the intensity of it all. This sophomore took everyone's best shot and showed the state just what "talented" can really mean. 9:12/4:08/1:54 was incredible to watch. The highlight in terms of raw performance was the last 1200m of the 3200m. I had it as 3:05, and that's with a dawdling first 100m! On to the post-season...

Very special hat tip to Shawnee Carnett of Concord University. She won the D-II 800m national title, and on most any other week would have been the headliner. Also a sophomore, her future is very bright. Another hat tip to Kate Harrison for winning the NCAA East Regional (or prelim, whatever they call it now) 10,000m. Congrats to all the WVU girls on their way to nationals.

Athlete of the Week - Megan Wright

Watch more video of 2011 BU Valentine Invitational on flotrack.org

The AotW for February 7th-13th is Megan Wright. Megan won the 5,000m at the Valentine Invitational at BU in a Canadian Indoor Record of 15:25.15. That's the end of Megan's indoor season, and thankfully she ended it with a bang. Collegiate conference meets are this weekend and the high school outdoor season is about to start. Here comes Spring!

Athlete of the Week - Megan Wright

The AotW for January 31st-February 6th is Megan Wright. Megan ran 8:52.01 at the Boston Indoor Games for third place, just squeezing by Kalkidan Gezahegne of Ethiopia, the defending 1,500m World Indoor champion. The ESPN coverage is on the Boston Indoor Games Facebook page. Megan finishes her indoor season next week, in Boston.

Special tip o' the cap to Andrew Benford for running 8:09.34. That's a ridiculous indoor 3k.

Athlete of the Week - Karly Hamric

The AotW for January 24th-30th is Karly Hamric. Ms. Hamric ran at the Aviva International Match finishing third in the 1,500m in a time of 4:21.41. The first-year pro got the nod to be on the USA team and got to race in Glascow, Scotland. Running for Riadha, Karly has had a busy and fast (2:07.72/2:45.56) indoor season.

Athlete of the Week - Matt Schiffbauer

The Athlete of the Week for January 17th-23rd is Matt Schiffbauer for his performance at the Gladstein Invitational in Indiana University. He ran the 3,000m in 8:20.29 in a stellar field. Great run, best of luck the rest of track season.

Athlete of the Week - Karly Hamric

The AotW for January 10th-16th is Karly Hamric of Riadha. Ms. Hamric ran 2:07.72 for 800m at the Doug Raymond Invitational in Kent State. The Preston alum graduated from WVU last fall and continues to train under Sean Cleary in Morgantown.

Athlete of the Week - Dayton McVicker

The AotW for January 3rd-9th is Dayton McVicker of West Fairmont High School. Dayton earns his AotW via his performance at the Fairmont Run to Read Half-Marathon, where he ran 1:17:37, good for second place. He is entering his final track season, best of luck. (Note: Justin Simpson could have won this award, but he didn't cross the finish line. How sad.)

Athlete of the Week - Santa Claus

The AotW for December 20th-26th and December 27th-January 2nd is Santa Claus.

Athlete of the Week - Jacob Burcham

The AotW for December 13th-19th is Jacob Burcham of Cabell Midland High School. Mr. Burcham won the Barboursville Winter Series 3miler in a time of 15:27. The sophomore wins the final AotW for 2010, which is fitting as he has been the story of the running community this year as well.

Athlete of the Week - Cody Pellicionni

The AotW for December 6th-12th is Cody Pelliccioni of Morgantown High School. Cody ran at Foot Locker Nationals and finished 36th. He is only the fifth West Virginian to ever participate in this exclusive high school meet. The future NC State runner covered the course in sixteen minutes. Best of luck in track.

Athlete of the Week - Jacob Burcham

The AotW for November 29th - December 5th is Jacob Burcham of Cabell Midland High School. Mr. Burcham went to NXN over the weekend and finished in 16th place against some of the best HS runners the nation has to offer. Hard to believe how quickly he's moved along just in the past two years. Clearly one of the top underclassmen in the nation, he now rolls into track carrying a MUCH higher level of fitness than this time last year. All the WV State Meet/ WV HS All-Time guys distance records are on Death Row... get ready for some bombs to get dropped this spring.

Photo: midlandrunning.com

Athlete of the Week - Cody Pelliccioni

The AotW for Nov. 22-28 is Cody Pelliccioni of Morgantown High. Cody wins via his 7th place finish at Foot Locker South and qualification to Foot Locker Nationals. He joins the very, very select group of Taylor, Redman, Cox and Simpson to have the title of "Foot Locker Qualifier." His time of 15:04 is the fastest ever by a West Virginian at Foot Locker South in the McAlpine era. He ran a smart, tough race and has rightfully earned his place as one of the greatest cross country runners to ever come through West Virginia. Enjoy the trip to San Diego, live it up.

Special tip o' the cap to Jacob Burcham of Cabell Midland for his 5th place at NXN SE and resulting bid to NXN in Portland. It's another great accomplishment on his resume and I'm sure he'll do a great job representing WV out west as well. Other special tips o' the cap: the NCAA crew for their great job in Terra Hault; Katie Gillespie for her All-American for the Mountaineers; Sami Harris and Eric Graf for cracking some skulls outside the Seeded races; and Kate Harrison for winning Canadian Senior XC.

Incredible Cross '10 for the state. FL qualifier, NXN qualifier, three guys at D-I Nats, two girls at D-I Nats, one A-A, one guy to D-II Nats, a new course record at Cabell, EIGHT new top-25 WV performances at FL South, a BoP champion, a Canadian Cross champion, and the list goes on. Cross is almost over... and track has almost begun!

Athlete of the Week - Andrew Benford

The AotW for November 8th-14th is Andrew Benfored of the University of Richmond. (The picture above is too awesome to only use once.) Mr. Benford ran 30:30 at the UL course to finish 10th at the Southeast Regional. His finish helped propel his team to an at-large bid to Nationals. Being an integral part of your team reaching nationals, as a senior, must be a dream come true. With Levi at the #4 spot and Steve at the helm, Richmond doing a great job bringing some WV to the national meet.

Special hat tip to Dustin Hall, Katie Gillespie and Sarah-Anne Brault for their individual qualifications to Nationals.

Athlete of the Week - Matt Schiffbauer

The AotW for November 1st-7th is Matt Schiffbauer. Schiffy wins via his third place finish at Conference USAs, where he helped the Thundering Herd to a fourth place finish. He covered the course in 23:42, twelve seconds off the winner. Next up is Regionals, this weekend, in Penn State. Best of luck to Schiffy and everyone else gunning for a place on the start line in Terra Haute.

Hat tip to the WVIAC runners, especially WJU guys and Concord women. Congrats on the win, best of luck at Regionals. Also, hat tip to Jacob Burcham and Jorden Thorton for winning the Third Ave. Mile down in Huntington.

Athlete of the Week - Andrew Benford

The AotW for October 25th-31st is Andrew Benford of the University of Richmond. Mr. Benford won the Atlantic-10 Championships over the weekend in a time of 24:12, leading his team to the team title as well. He is a graduate of Ravenswood High and won numerous state titles in his time there. His next stop should be Regionals where he'll try to qualify for nationals. Best of luck to him as he continues to storm through his season.

Bunch of Tips 'o the Cap this week... CMHS for the incredible job with the State Meet, honestly the WVSSAC should just award it to them on a 10-year basis... Jacob Burcham for the jaw-dropping performance to win AAA Boys. Gonna be fun to see the scalps he takes at NXN... Sarah McCauley for that thunderous move in AA-A Girls... Midland boys for putting together one of the top WV team performances I've ever seen... University girls for refusing to lose, again... Propst for closing things out in style... Woodford for running the hard race and repeating... and to all the kids (collegiates too) who hit their goals this weekend.

Regionals, Nationals, BoP, NXN and Footlockers... let's finish this one off.

What I think that I think.

Here's your 1,000% certified W-preview of the 2010 West Virginia State XC Meet. Like always, there won't be any real predictions but remember to turn up the tunes! (Some tunes are slightly NSFW, for naughty language reasons.)


10:00 am -- AA-A Boys

On the individual side, there's two Shaffers and a Woodford who seem to have somewhat seperated themselves from the rest of the state. On the team side, it looks like it's a fight between Grafton, St. Mary's and maybe Phillip Barbour. But, this is AA-A boys. If anything over the past couple years, AA-A boys has been chaos. Those three individuals could win, someone out of the field could win, those three teams could win, some group of dudes could come out of the sticks and 15 point the state. I don't know and neither does anyone else. I miss the old predictable days of Ravenswood dominance, where no one had to care about point totals because we all knew the outcome. This race will be fun, just remember to buy a program beforehand. I guarantee you'll need to use it.

10:45 -- AA-A Girls

This looks like it'll be the Philip Barbour show on the team side of things. While they've got the girls up front to run away with this thing, it only takes one bad race to let Scott and others slip by. But, all eyes are going to be on...

HARRIS v. MCCAULEY... cage match! The girl who can run forever versus the girl with an incredibly explosive kick. The immovable object versus the unstoppable force. Yin versus Yang. Water versus Fire. Spikes versus trail shoes. Defending champ Maggie Drazba will be protecting her title and has the firepower to do so, but it'll take an upset at this point to get by both the favorites.

1:00 -- The Main Event

There's going to be three intense battles within this race: Individual title, the last All-State spot and the team title. Individually, this will be a race that will go down in WV distance running lore. It's far to close to call, but the winner will certainly come out of the Big Four of Burcham, Cody, Dayton, and Doughty. How this will play out is a complete and total mystery. Each of these runners are fully-trained and apparently healthy. There will be no excuses and no rankings or polls to fall back on. The winner will be better than the other three, period. If you want to step onto the track with a shot a victory, the price of admission is going to be sub-5min/mi pace. Good luck.

The last All-State spot will be a wild finish. If you consider that the Big Four will almost certainly take four All-State spots and E. Graff-Salmons will likely take two more, all of a sudden you have the rest of the state running for only four places! Born-StobbeBrown-Schwarzenberg were within one second at NCACs. Waugh-Campbell-Harmon-King were within 13 seconds at MSAC. I expect these seven, and a few more, to merge into a monster third chase pack. There's going to be ten to twelve guys trying to squeeze into those four spots and not everyone is going to fit.

In the team title, everyone seems to have annointed Cabell Midland as the 2010 champions. I think they're the favorites but that the race is much closer than most people are saying. Jefferson has an outside chance on a normal day, but can close the projected gap very quickly with only one person running an above-average race. The State Meet can be a very strange place, and as Mark Twain said, “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

1:45 -- AAA Girls

This should end up being your convential WV State Meet race. A prohibitive favorite (Propst), the rest of the field in a long string behind her, and a couple teams fighting it out for the team title. The only thing that could beat Propst is something unforeseen: an injury, a fall, someone who runs out of their mind, ect. It would be an upset, to put it mildly.

The field behind Propst is pretty murky. Scherich and Phillips are obviously having great seasons and there's a slew of ladies only a few strides behind them. Really, everything from 2nd place to last place is up for grabs. There will certainly be some unexpected finishes and a top-15 dominated by freshmen...

The team title will have dozens of parents counting finishers and crunching numbers as if their lives depended on it. UHS and Preston are incredibly close, seperated by only 2 points at NCACs. Only those two teams can win because no one else has a chance against the Mon/Preston powerhouses, right? Well, Hampshire seems to have been taking notes from another Eastern Panhandle team last year... I smell an ambush. It'll be a wild ride and the top three teams will probably be seperated by less than ten points.

There you go, that should be all the major players. The typical best viewing strategy is to watch the start, climb the hill behind the track to the one mile/two mile marks, then run back down the hill and catch the finish. Things to watch for that could make or break races: Grafton's #5 guy v. St. Mary's #5, where is Scott's #5 girl, how hard can Harris take the first mile out, where is Jefferson's #5 guy, are Cabell's #4 and#5 guys in the top-15, can the other three break Doughty by 2mi, and how far up the field is the Hampsire girls' pack located. The weather looks beautiful and it should be a great day of racing.

Good luck to everyone... you're gonna need it.

Athlete of the Week - Stewart Jones

The AotW for October 18th-24th is Stewart Jones of Wheeling Jesuit. Mr. Jones wins his AotW by finishing third at the Walsh/Malone Invitational (3K) in a time of 9:07. Mr. Jones is a 2007 graduate of Weir High School and is in his third year at WJU. Next up for him should be the WVIAC Championships on 07 November. Best of luck to him.

Athlete of the Week - Clara Grandt

The Aotw for October 11-17 is Clara Grandt. Clara ran the Tuft's 10K on Monday and finished as the fifth American in 33:23. Tuft's 10K served as the USATF women's 10K road national championship. Clara moved up to 12th in the USARC standings with her finish. Great job Clara, best of luck through the rest of the year. (Feel free to play "Where's Waldo" with this picture and find Clara...)

Very special tip 'o the cap to Andrew Benford. Mr. Benford won an AotW a few weeks ago and came within 40m of winning another on Saturday. If you haven't seen his finish at pre-nats, go here and fast-forward to about 24:00. The next time someone gives you the old cliche of "I gave 100%!" have them watch that video. How he could draw so much out of his body that he hit the literal point of collapse is a testament to toughness. Best of luck to him through the rest of his season, here's hoping he brings home an All-American.

Athlete of the Week - Dayton McVicker

The AotW for October 4th to 10th is Dayton McVicker. The senior at West Fairmont earns his AotW via his 16:28 win at the 23rd Times Invitational. His time was the fastest recorded at Times in the RunWV.com era. An impressive win over stiff competition. Best of luck to Dayton through the rest of the fall.

Special tip 'o the cap to the middle school runners that were at Times. Both races were extremely deep and fun to watch. The future looks promising.

(Photo: www.tristaterunnur.com - Where there's also video and further, in-depth coverage.)

Athlete of the Week - Andrew Benford

The AotW for September 27th to October 3rd is Andrew Benford of the University of Richmond. The Ravenswood High graduate earns his AotW by placing third at the Paul Short meet in Lehigh, Pa. He covered the 8k in 23:52 for third place, trailing THE Sam Chelenga by only 18 seconds. This outstanding result helped lead his team up to sixth place. Best of luck to Andrew throughout the rest of his season.

Tip o' the cap to the high schoolers this past week for taking some big, out-of-state scalps... it's almost time.