On Saturday with a light drizzle falling and the temperature at race time moving only to 39 degrees in Ona, Jefferson High junior Abby Colbert bettered her second-place performance she had in last year’s state cross country meet.

Colbert reached the soggy finish line as the meet winner this time and was some 28 seconds in front of runner-up Peyton Panger (Capital High).Colbert’s meet-winning time was 18:23.70 as compared with Panger’s second-place time of 18:51.70.

Victoria Cooke (Morgantown) was third amongst the individual finishers. Both Panger and Cooke are seniors.

University High edged city rival Morgantown for the girls Class AAA team title. The Hawks had only 54 team points to best the runner-up Mohigans, who finished with only 60 points. Hampshire was third with 98 points while the only team finishing in the Top 12 from either Jefferson or Berkeley County was ninth-place Musselman.

Colbert had earlier won the Region 2 individual championship.

In the boys division of the big-school state meet it was University High as the champion. The Hawks had only 44 points and were paced by meet winner Seth Edwards, who recorded a winning time of 16:15.70. Edwards’ teammates Alex Minor and Tristan Henry were fifth and sixth overall to help the Hawks to the title.

Cabell Midland, running on its home course, was the Class AAA runner-up with a distant 76 points and Morgantown was third with 102 points.

From the Eastern Panhandle, Musselman finished sixth in the big-school standings and Jefferson was 10th overall with 251 points.

The best finish from any Jefferson High runner was the 28th place gained by sophomore Dylan Stamper. Stamper recorded a time of 17:39.30.

The other four Jefferson High runners whose finishes counted toward the team standings were Colin Hayes (48th), Mason Young (50th), Jonathan Royster (54th) and Ethan Stead (72nd).