The 2021 Super Six in Wheeling did not disappoint! However, after everything we all went through in 2020, just finding out the games were going to be played was certainly the best news of all!
Once again, the Super Six Committee did not disappoint! The wonderful men and women that are a part of this Super Six Super Group do an unbelievable job every year of putting the kids first. And, I know we hear that little phrase….”putting the kids first”……so many times, but in the case of the fine folks in Wheeling do exactly that! This was year #28 for Wheeling to host the WV High School Football Championships and from everyone I talked with this past weekend, they seem excited to go for another twenty-eight! We can only hope that is the case!
As far as the games go, the final scores were not indicative of how great the kids played! In the Friday night game that saw #16 Fairmont Senior slip past #2 Independence 21-12. As a #16 seed, the Polar Bears spent their entire playoff run on the road as they defeated #1 Herbert Hoover….#8 Robert C. Byrd and #5 Poca before taking the 9 point win over #2 and previously unbeaten Independence! Fairmont Senior was led by running back Germaine “Jiggy” Lewis Lewis who rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries and caught a pair of passes for 25 yards to finish as the Polar Bears’ most valuable player. For Independence, Atticus Goodson rushed for 129 yards on 26 carries and was the Patriots’ MVP. Judah Price added 60 rushing yards, but the Patriots netted only 70 passing yards on 12 throws, with seven falling incomplete and one being intercepted.
On Saturday afternoon, under a blue sky and very mild temperatures, the #2 seeded Bulldogs of Martinsburg proved why, as Huntington Coach Billy Seals said, they were the Kings of the Mountain in Class AAA as the young men from the Eastern Panhandle won their 9th Class AAA Football Championship defeating #1 and previously undefeated Huntington by a final of 62-21! In his last high school football game, Martinsburg senior Hudson Clement rewrote the record books at Wheeling Island Stadium. The outstanding wideout and defensive back, stole the show from the opening kick. He rushed for four touchdowns and caught an additional four scores to finish with eight TDs and set a Super Six scoring record in the process. The previous record for most touchdowns scored in a Class AAA Championship game by one individual was 4 and that record was held by Tony Johnson from Morgantown in 1983….Chris Martin of Nitro in 1998….T. Porchia of Morgantown in 1998 and Jordan Kinney of Capital in 2014. One year after the Bulldogs were bounced from the postseason as a result of the color-coded covid map, they notched a fifth consecutive title in contests played at the Super Six. Huntington’s Scout Arthur played big in defeat as the 5’10, 170 senior led all players with 14 tackles.
The Super Six closed for another season on Saturday night as #4 seed Ritchie County ran past #6 seed Williamstown 42-21 to capture their first ever state football title! For Ritchie County, 6’4, 182 pound senior Gus Morrison produced his fifth and final touchdown on a 10-yard run, then pulled in another two-point pass from junior quarterback Ethan Haught to give him a Super Six Class A record 34 points in the victory. For Williamstown, they were led by 5’10, 175 pound sophomore quarterback Maxwell Molessa who rushed for 120 yards and two scores, while 6′, 185 junior running back Rickie Allen gained 90 yards on 16 carries.
The three Super Six championship games ended a 2021 season that had many ups and downs, but in the end closed on a very high note! And now, we all look forward to 2022…..those hot August practices cannot come soon enough!