CHARLESTON, W. Va. — West Virginia seems like a small state until you actually drive across it.
Some fans attending this year’s state baseball tournament this weekend at Appalachian Power Park in Charleston did just that.
More than 4,000 were on hand for Thursday night’s Class AA semifinals, and the crowds were sizable throughout the four games Friday and the three championship contests Saturday.
Catch all the game recaps, highlights and photos here.
Nevin Kilmer came all the way from Hedgesville to watch the high school’s baseball team chase its first championship.
“It took me around four-and-a-half hours to come down with a couple stops here and there,” said Kilmer.
Hedgesville is located in Berkeley County in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, approximately seven miles north of Martinsburg.
Kilmer said it may look far on the map but it’s actually not that bad.
“It’s all four-lane highway once we get on 68 outside of Hancock, Md.,” he said. “We go up through Cumberland to Morgantown and then back down 79.”
Kilmer adds that he makes the trip from Hedgesville to Charleston regularly for work each month and admits that he doesn’t mind the trip.
“I come down by myself, turn the radio on and come on down the road,” he said.
The town of roughly 310 people is about 284 miles from Charleston, which according to the GPS should take the average driver somewhere in the area of four hours and 40 minutes to travel.
For Kelly Church, the basketball coach at Hedgesville High School, the trip took five hours, which included a few directional problems once they parked at Appalachian Power Park.
“We missed the first pitch because when we came to walk in the stadium we went the wrong direction from across the street so we had to walk all the way around the stadium once,” said Church.
But Church didn’t decry the distance Eagles fans had to travel. In fact, he suggested it actually added to the experience. And from the noise made by the Hedgesville students sitting behind the first-base dugout this weekend, the drive didn’t rob them of any energy.
“Maybe the fact that it’s so far away adds a little bit more pageantry to it,” Church said. “It becomes a little bit more of a trip, for the fans, for the families, for the parents and certainly for the kids on the team.”
Despite the distance needed to cover and the costs associated with traveling, Church said the experience of being at the tournament made it all worth it.