MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The cheers stopped on March 12, 2020.
So did anticipation and momentum and, most importantly, hope.
That’s the day the COVID-19 pandemic threw a knockout blow to the local sports world, one that took months to recover from, and even then, it was not a full-fledged counterpunch.
There were no gradual eliminations, no easing into it.
On that day in March, sports simply came to a crushing halt.
The state girls’ basketball tournament was stopped in the middle of play.
The boys’ tournament never got underway, costing University High an opportunity to win back-to-back state championships.
The West Virginia men’s and women’s basketball teams were in Kansas City, ready to compete in the Big 12 tournaments. Neither suited up.
Disappointment continued to hit in the days and months that followed.
Spring sports at the area high schools and at WVU, either ended or were never permitted to begin.
The pandemic continued to be a blanket that covered us with unanswered questions throughout the summer and it wasn’t until the fall of 2020 that sports were permitted again.
It was a year that still saw positives shine through the sea of negatives.
Awards were still won by our area’s top athletes, Division-I letters-of-intent were still signed.
We adjusted and persevered and, eventually, began to get back to a place where sports mattered yet again.
It was far from normal, which, in a nutshell, maybe best describes our year in sports in 2020.
We begin our top 10 with the obvious top story of the day our world changed:
1. COVID-19 comes to town.
Bob Huggins may never forget the feeling.
The WVU men’s basketball team had built up some momentum heading into the Big 12 tournament and has just finished a pregame meal when the news hit that no more games were going to be played.
“You want to talk about playing well, we were playing really well last year going into the conference tournament,” he said. WVU athletic director Shane Lyons, “came down and told us they just canceled the Big 12 tournament and the NCAA tournament. You talk about a kick in the you-know-what. That hit our guys hard and who knows what was going to happen from that point on?”
What happened next was months of confusion and cancellations.
Maybe no team was more affected than the University boys’ hoops team.
Armed with the best player in the state in senior guard Kaden Metheny and a No. 1 ranking, the Hawks were never given the chance to defend their state title it won in dramatic fashion in 2019.
“It was like getting the rug pulled out from under you,” UHS head coach Joe Schmidle said. “This was supposed to be an opportunity of a lifetime for these kids and they’ll never get this moment back.”
No spring high school sports were played in 2020. WVU was forced to shut down spring football and the annual spring game.
The NCAA gave its spring athletes an extra year of eligibility to make up for the season they had missed.
There were no signs of athletic activity until July, when WVU athletes were permitted to begin workouts and the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission allowed high schools to conduct their three-week summer workouts.
All of it came with restrictions and guidelines. In the case of WVU, new testing protocols shut down men’s and women’s basketball workouts for 14 days, after some in each program tested positive for the virus.
As the summer turned to fall, hope began to increase. High school sports began with fall golf tournaments. The WVU women’s soccer team became the first sport at the school to compete when it traveled to Iowa State in September.
WVU hosted Eastern Kentucky to open its shortened football season, but did so in a nearly empty stadium.
Preston High was able to open its football season on time, but the news was not as good for the schools in Monongalia County.
Because of the state’s color-coded COVID-19 map, UHS, Morgantown, Clay-Battelle and Trinity were forced to postpone the starts of their seasons until October.
2. University’s Metheny claims Bill Evans Award
After becoming the UHS boys’ basketball team’s all-time leading scorer, breaking the career 3-point record and joining the 2,000-point club, Kaden Metheny was named the Bill Evans Award winner on April 5.
Metheny led the then-No. 1 Hawks to a 22-3 season record before the pandemic shut down the state basketball tournaments before a boys’ basketball team ever touched the court. It’s unknown, though likely, the Hawks would have won the state title for the second year in a row, but what isn’t unknown is Metheny’s impact on the UHS program.
Metheny was the first Morgantown-area player to win the award since its conception in 1970. He is now starting for Bowling Green in his freshman year with the team.WVU,
3. Koenning part ways after controversy
This summer was filled with protests after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by police in Minneapolis in May.
As a result, many athletes began to speak out about what they deemed to be inappropriate behavior from coaches, and WVU was no exception. Sophomore safety Kerry Martin posted in June on his Twitter account defensive coordinator Vic Koenning made remarks about race and religion, and also called players names.
Koenning was immediately placed on administrative leave by athletic director Shane Lyons, and after a month-long investigation, Koenning and the university “mutually parted ways.” The results of the investigation were not released by the school.
As a result, head coach Neal Brown, who worked with Koenning for years at Troy and WVU, needed to change his coaching staff, promoting defensive line coach Jordan Lesley and cornerbacks coach Jahmile Addae to split duties and call plays for different sections of the defense. The Mountaineers ended up with one of the best defenses in the country, ranking in the top 10 in several major categories.
Martin decided to sit out the 2020 season with safety concerns over COVID-19 with his history of sickle cell anemia and asthma.
4. Biser named MHS football coach
Sean Biser was hired by Morgantown High on Feb. 25 to take the football program “back to the future,” as the school branded the move. Biser, formerly with Keyser, is a student of the Wing-T, a formation that MHS ran both under Glen McNew Sr. and John Bowers.
Biser’s hiring made him the 16th head coach of the football program, taking over from Matt Lacy after his retirement in November 2019.
Biser spent 16 years leading the Keyser football program, taking it to the Class AA playoffs all but twice, and reaching the quarterfinals in eight of his last 12 seasons. The Mohigans had a late start to the year due to COVID-19, but after two losses to top-10 teams, MHS powered through and finished the year 3-1 with wins over Parkersburg South, Linsly and University, and a loss to Bridgeport. The Mohigans were just shy of making the playoffs.
5. Cross-country dominance continues
The Morgantown girls’ and University boys’ cross-country teams once again added plaques to their state title cabinets in their respective schools with wins in Ona on Oct. 31.
Larry Josh Edwards, a junior at UHS, and Irene Riggs, a sophomore at MHS, each secured first-place finishes, pushing their teams to another top finish at the state championship meet at Cabell Midland. Further, Rocco DeVincent (UHS) and Lea Hatcher (MHS) secured the runner-up positions.
Riggs and Edwards both finished well ahead of the pack with times of 17:59 and 15:25, respectively. Hatcher clocked 18:28, while DeVincent finished at 16:15. Further, Hatcher’s second-place finish was one for the books, as the 2019 state champion was out all but two races in her junior year with a back injury, the second race being the state meet.
6. Darius Stills named All-American
The under-recruited Fairmont native, Darius Stills who continually proved time and time again the chip he had on his shoulder was legitimate, capped off his WVU career earning All-American honors by the Associated Press and Sporting News, USA Today, Bleacher Report and ESPN, and second team by The Athletic and Football Writers Association of America.
More first-team honors could follow in the coming days and he has a chance to be WVU’s first consensus All-American since Steve Slaton and Dan Mozes in 2006.
Stills, also named the Big 12 Defensive Lineman of the Year, finished the regular season with 22 tackles, 3 1/2 sacks, 7 1/2 tackles for loss and an interception. He also registered 10 1/2 sacks and 21 tackles for loss over the last two seasons.
Considered undersized by many out of high school, Stills had just one Power 5 offer from Rutgers, and it wasn’t until he committed to the Scarlet Knights that the Mountaineers decided to offer. Stills flipped his commitment and over the last four years, has helped heal wounds between WVU and some of the top prospects in West Virginia, proving in-state players can succeed at that level.
Despite having an extra year of eligibility due to COVID-19, Stills decided to enter the 2021 NFL Draft, but played in Thursday’s Liberty Bowl so he had one more chance to play with his brother Dante.
7. Black Bears find soft landing with MLB
Major League Baseball made drastic cuts to Minor League Baseball teams across the country, and with the cancellation of the 2020 season because of COVID-19, the future of the West Virginia Black Bears was in doubt.
Beginning in 2015, the Black Bears served as the Class A short-season affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates — most of the top college prospects from the June MLB draft played 40-plus games from June-September in the New York-Penn League.
Now, the Black Bears are no longer affiliated with the Pirates, nor are they with any specific organization. However, MLB introduced a new league in November, the MLB Draft League, made up of draft-eligible, amateur players at the college and high school levels. Made up of six teams — the Black Bears, Williamsport, Mahoning Valley, State College, Trenton and Frederick — the league will play a 68-game season with an All-Star Break around MLB’s draft, which is now scheduled for July.
The Black Bears were one of four minor league teams in West Virginia, but due to cuts, they are the only one that remains. The West Virginia Power in Charleston, Princeton and Bluefield were given the ax by MLB.
8. Ammons inks with Division-I DePaul
Long-time DePaul women’s basketball commit Kaitlyn Ammons made it official Nov. 11 at a socially distanced signing at Colasante’s.
Ammons verbally committed to DePaul on April 10 after garnering attention from many Division-I programs, choosing the Big East program after falling in love with everything the Chicago university had to offer, noting “it was the only option for me.”
The high school basketball seasons are currently on hold to try and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in West Virginia, but in her junior year Ammons averaged 16.7 points and nine rebounds per game as MHS’s star forward/center. Further, she helped lead the Mohigans to a state playoffs appearance. The current season’s start will be re-evaluated Jan. 11.
9. Aquatic Center hosts first state swim meet
While the West Virginia high school swim meet has been in Morgantown for years, it moved from the WVU Natatorium to the new Mylan Park Aquatic Center in February.
With a more spacious pool deck and bleachers for parents and fans to watch, it was a celebration of not only the best prep swimmers in the state, but also for a new state-of-the-art facility in Morgantown.
Morgantown High’s Caroline Riggs, while getting over the flu, was the star of the day for local participants, wining the state title in the 200-freestyle with a time of 1:53.89.
10. Tennant steps down as Preston’s coach
Jonathan Tennant spent nine seasons at the helm of the Preston football team, but 2020 was his last after sending in his resignation a few days after the season concluded in early November.
Prior to Tennant’s hiring, the Knights were 1-29, and Tennant turned the program around and went 22-59 in his nine seasons. However, he never secured a winning record — the best was a 5-5 finish in 2014.
Preston made the playoffs in 2019, finishing the regular season with a 4-6 record before losing to top-seeded Martinsburg in the first round. This year, the Knights were able to play nine games, but finished 3-7 following a forfeit loss to Lewis County — a team and county decision.
PHS also had issues with its bleachers, so “home” games the last three games of the year were played at Buckhannon-Upshur and University.
Best of the rest
1. WVU forward Oscar Tshiebwe enters and withdraws from NBA draft
2. Big changes with Trinity coaches, administrators
3. MHS’s Caden Biser wins Howley Award
4. WVU men’s basketball team knocks off No. 4 Baylor
5. High school winter sports delayed until 2021
6. UHS boys’ soccer team reaches state championship
7. MHS volleyball’s Alayna Corwin signs at Marshall
8. WVU wrestler Noah Adams finishes season undefeated
9. WVU women’s basketball team beats Tennessee
10. UHS football team makes playoffs
11. WVU women’s soccer team finishes second in Big 12
