Parkersburg's Collin Richman and Parkersburg South's Alyssa McCrady run legs during the annual city cross country dual on Wednesday evening at Parkersburg High School. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — Things were a little different this year for the annual city cross country dual held Wednesday on the campus of Parkersburg High School.

Instead of the regular format, the two programs opted to do a relay meet event, but once again it was the Big Reds who kept the trophy as the hosts boys and girls won for the fourth consecutive season.

The PHS girls posted a combined winning time of 47 minutes and 22 seconds with Morgan Metz (8:49) leading the way ahead of Audrey Wagoner (9:08), Olivia Carpenter (9:28), Brie Winans (9:57) and Seneca Lang (9:58).

“The kids were resilient. They did a good job just coming out and running even though it’s not our typical 5K we were looking forward to,” admitted Patriot head coach Brian Blanc, whose girls had a time of 49:17 thanks to Alyssa McCrady (9:20), Haley Raper (9:34), Jalyn Eddy (9:50), Sophia Shamblin (10:01) and Lexi McKinney (10:29). “Hopefully next year we can get it back to being a 5K to properly represent the sport. Just want to make sure everybody doesn’t confuse us with track.

“We had as many complete groups of five as you could get. They ran a mile and a half loop around the PHS campus. A little bit of figure eights here and there. I wish we could go back to the 5K course. I think it would be more enjoyable and do the sport more justice. Impressed with the start here part way through the season. The young leadership on the girls team coming up and the boys, the youngsters have stepped in and stepped up to the plate for us.”

Parkersburg South's Brent Freels competes in the annual city cross country dual Wednesday evening at Parkersburg High School. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

Carter Thorpe’s time of 7:45 was five seconds faster than teammate Rogan Mincks as Ricardo Salazar (7:57), Anthony Herrera (8:22) and Calvin Lantz (8:50) combined for a winning time of 40 minutes and 46 seconds.

The Patriot boys, who had the fastest time of the day thanks to Gatlin McLain’s 7:30, clocked in with a total time of 43:26. Patriot teammates Jesse Morris (8:02), Brent Freels (8:55), Caysen Litton (9:01) and Kyeese Anderson (9:57) followed.

“Gary Prater and I started the dual 30 years ago at a time when there were no home meets, no middle school cross country,” said PHS head coach George Angelos. “I had one girl runner on the entire team and we had to come up with a charade to draw attention and the charade was we would sacrifice a week of our season running a road race on a Friday right. Something that’s totally not something that’s part of cross country.

“Thirty years later we have a middle school program now. We have one of the largest meets in the state as a home meet. We have many other meets in the area including Belpre and St. Marys that are major meets and our fans can see us. This a win-win. We get to fulfil the rivalry expectation and at the same time it gives us and our teams an opportunity to either go to an actual cross country meet this weekend or strategically use it for a rest week.”

Top efforts for the ‘B’ teams went to Big Reds Drake Rollins (8:25) and Allison Poole (10:29) as well as Patriots Nicolas Johnson (10:00) and Raylen Reeder (11:23).

Parkersburg's Keira McPeek runs a leg during the annual city cross country dual on Wednesday evening at Parkersburg High School. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

“Quite frankly a road race in 90 degree weather is not what we need,” added coach Angelos. “Not trying to be a running snub, but there’s a reason why this race is so novel and the good teams don’t do it and won’t do it. The word I’m hearing from most people was that it’s actually pretty good. We can tweak it with the South coaches and find something that’s lowkey.

“Real pleased. The kids ran well, took care of their business and got a workout afterwards. We’ll have a hard workout on Friday again. Both teams won and we kept the cup for the fourth time in a row and 14th time in 16 years. I’m glad we took care of business and represented our school.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com