Pocahontas Boys Fifth Place Finish at State Track Meet Ties 2004 Record

Charleston, WV – Weather conditions in Charleston this past Saturday,, low seventies with a little light rain may have helped the athletes from cooler mountain counties who have often melted at past state track meets. The 2010 Pocahontas County High School Boys Track Team coached by Mike Knisely finished in fifth place in Class A at the 2010 West Virginia High School State Track Meet held last Friday and Saturday, at Laidley Field. This year’s finish by the boys ties the highest finish in 2004This 2010 team exceeded expectations and again broke the points record with 51 points. (22 teams scoring).

Senior Abe Rittenhouse repeated his 2009 3200m run state championship with a time of 9:50.92 came in second to senior Derrick Chaffin of Richwood a second straight year in the 1600m run (4.31.18 to Chaffin’s 4:30.27), and placed fifth in the 800m run, (2.01.92), and those are exactly the placements predicted. Abe was also correctly predicted to place fourth among the five high point scorers with his repeat four-medal performance.

The only surprise was that Abe and the rest of the 4x400m team (seniors Josh Arbogast and Jesse Bolyard and junior Tanner Graham) did better, placing second, than their predicted third place finish, to up Rittenhouse’s point total to 22, rather than the predicted 21.5 points.

The very close high point honors went to seniors #1 Kyle Davies of St. Marys – 40 points, #2 Derrick Chaffin of Richwood – 24, #3 Zach Holden of Doddridge – 23, and #4 Rittenhouse of PCHS – 22, and junior #5 Aaron Schneid of Wheeling Central – 20. Davies scored the first 40-point meet in any boys classification with four good medals (100m, 200m, 400m and long jump).

Tanner Graham, a junior, is now the leading candidate to take gold next year in the 200m with his 23.58 finish, .50 second behind first place Kyle Davies and .53 second behind 2nd place Adam Kerns of Williamstown. Both Davies and Kerns are seniors this year. Graham’s second place medal in the 400m (51.24) was .53 second behind Davies also, so Tanner is also heir apparent to the 2011 400m championship. Graham went from unranked early in the year to pushing the top scoring athlete in any class, Davies, in two events.

Jesse Bolyard illustrated the extra effort at states that lifted PCHS into fifth place. Bolyard was ranked fourth in the 300m hurdles earlier in the year’s best performances in April, but then dropped out of the rankings and was not predicted to place at states. Ranked ninth regionally, he ran the slow heat and won it. He ended up with a fifth place medal (43.17) after the times were crunched.

Arbogast, Bolyard and Graham plus junior Noah Pugh of the 4x200m team ended the season ranked #5 in the best performances, and they walked away from Charleston with a fifth-place medal. This was Graham’s fourth medal, Bolyard and Arbogast’s third medal and Pugh’s first.

Junior Evan Rose had his best efforts of the season in both the shot put (44-10.50) and the discus (133-02) for fourth and fifth place medals respectively. Rose was ranked eighth in the shot and sixth in the discus going into the state meet, and he was predicted to only win fifth in the discus.

The closest Kay Wiley’s young and improving girls track team came to scoring was in the 800m event. Freshman Olivia Workman placed seventh – she was ranked regionally at thirteenth going into meet.

Congratulations to the PCHS Warrior Track teams on another successful track and field season.

Thanks to Bruce Mckean for the information in this report.