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Press Box for December 2

By Staff | Dec 2, 2020

With the West Virginia Super Six now cancelled, and the coronavirus spreading throughout the state, it seems winter sports may be completely wiped out. While there is still a glimmer of hope that schools will start back up, and basketball season will get underway, we have to turn our attention to Collegiate and Professional sports to fill the void.

This past week West Virginia University raised the hopes of the Mountaineer faithful by winning the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic in South Dakota. The Mountaineers were ranked number 15 entering the tournament, and quickly caught the attention of the pollsters by winning all three games in the tournament.

While they struggled at times in several areas of the game, they seemed to improve as they went through the tournament and moved to number 13 in the AP Poll this week.

The Mountaineers are replacing Tennessee in the Jimmy V Classic tonight in Indianapolis and were scheduled to play number 1 Gonzaga. Tennessee ranked No. 12 had to withdraw from the event due to positive COVID-19 tests within the program, including one from head coach Rick Barnes.

Last week on Wednesday they took down a good South Dakota State team 79-71, in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score. On Thursday they eliminated VCU 78-66, and won the event on Friday afternoon by defeating Western Kentucky 70-64 to move to 3-0 entering tonights matchup in te Jimmy V Cancer Classic.

This past weekend the WVSSAC declared three state football champions after the color coded COVID map wiped out all three football state championship games. The WVSSAC confirmed the elimination of all Super Six games late Saturday evening. The Super Six had been scheduled to be played at Laidley Field in Charleston.

WVSSAC Executive Director Bernie Dolan said they held an emergency board meeting to discuss the situation and the vote of the Board of Directors was unanimous to stay consistent in their decision making, which also affected other sports earlier this fall.

“It’s an unfortunate situation for everyone but we knew going into the playoffs that this could be a possibility,” said Dolan.

South Charleston (6-0) ended as Class AAA champion winning by default as the other contenders were eliminated due to no Sunday option and Covid related cancellations.

Fairmont Senior was declared the Class AA champion, winning by default under the same conditions.

St. Marys came away as Class A champions by defeating Pendleton County on Saturday and was scheduled to meet up with Ritchie County. The Rebels also won a semi-final game, but were disqualified after turning Red on the map.

Congratulations to Hope Weber, Mallory Yeater, and Regan Smith. Weber and Yeater both earned first team All-State in Volleyball, while Smith was named Captain of the second team. All three players were named to the All-Valley team and all three earned first team All-County.

Weber and Yeater have been four year starters for the Paden City Wildcats, while Smith has been a four year player for the Silver Knights. All three players will be hard to replace in 2021. Good luck to these hard working girls as they finish their senior year and move on to life after high school.