When Winfield took the exit for Class AAA this year, a huge roadblock was lifted for the rest of the track programs in AA.

No longer would the Generals run circles around the competition at the state track meet - Winfield captured the last five boys championships and five of the past six in girls.

It's time for someone else to step up to the podium at Laidley Field this weekend and accept a double-A title trophy, and right now Oak Hill seems as good a bet as any to claim its first girls crown.

The Red Devils are dominating the leader lists on RunWV.com and qualified a whopping 18 entries for the two-day state meet, which opens at 2 p.m. Friday at Laidley.

Not only does Oak Hill boast quantity, but also quality. Check out these efforts:

And that doesn't even begin to account for points the Red Devils could garner from junior distance runner Neaire Miller (800, 1,600) and pole vaulter Savannah Robertson, who own top-five efforts in their events.

"There's a lot of points to spread around [with Winfield gone],'' said Oak Hill coach George Smith. "I feel like the state title is up for grabs.

"I know I looked at it last year when we placed third. Winfield was going to be moving up to triple-A and [runner-up] Berkeley Springs had a senior [Meghan Mock] who scored 38 of their points. So I thought, 'Hmm, what are we going to have?' It's kind of playing out in our favor now, but there are some good teams we'll be going up against.''

Oak Hill held a 93-59 edge over Roane County for first place in the most recent RunWV.com power rankings, and managed a 36-point margin over runner-up Philip Barbour in the AA division at the Friends of Coal/Gazette Relays three weeks ago. Shady Spring placed third and Roane fourth in that meet.

When Winfield took the exit for Class AAA this year, a huge roadblock was lifted for the rest of the track programs in AA.

No longer would the Generals run circles around the competition at the state track meet - Winfield captured the last five boys championships and five of the past six in girls.

It's time for someone else to step up to the podium at Laidley Field this weekend and accept a double-A title trophy, and right now Oak Hill seems as good a bet as any to claim its first girls crown.

The Red Devils are dominating the leader lists on RunWV.com and qualified a whopping 18 entries for the two-day state meet, which opens at 2 p.m. Friday at Laidley.

Not only does Oak Hill boast quantity, but also quality. Check out these efforts:

And that doesn't even begin to account for points the Red Devils could garner from junior distance runner Neaire Miller (800, 1,600) and pole vaulter Savannah Robertson, who own top-five efforts in their events.

"There's a lot of points to spread around [with Winfield gone],'' said Oak Hill coach George Smith. "I feel like the state title is up for grabs.

"I know I looked at it last year when we placed third. Winfield was going to be moving up to triple-A and [runner-up] Berkeley Springs had a senior [Meghan Mock] who scored 38 of their points. So I thought, 'Hmm, what are we going to have?' It's kind of playing out in our favor now, but there are some good teams we'll be going up against.''

Oak Hill held a 93-59 edge over Roane County for first place in the most recent RunWV.com power rankings, and managed a 36-point margin over runner-up Philip Barbour in the AA division at the Friends of Coal/Gazette Relays three weeks ago. Shady Spring placed third and Roane fourth in that meet.

The Red Devils do sport youth in key areas, but they've also gotten the chance to run at Laidley thrice this season. Besides the FOC/Gazette Relays, they ran fourth in the George Washington BB&T Classic and fifth in the Sam LeRose/Stan Smith Memorial - and trailed only AAA teams in the standings in those two meets.

"I intentionally scheduled us at Laidley Field several times this year,'' Smith said. "I knew our freshmen were going to be good based on how the middle-school team did last year, and I wanted those girls to understand Laidley Field, knowing that's where the final week would be, so they would be comfortable. They ran against a lot of triple-A schools, and I thought they might be intimidated by that, but it really didn't come out that way.''

In fact, a glance at all the firepower that Oak Hill can put on the track might lead one to believe that the only team than can keep the Red Devils from winning it all is themselves - if they don't run to their ability.

"If we perform the way we should,'' Smith said, "based on what we did this year, the only one standing in our way is ourselves - [by] mouthing off, bickering within the squad.

"We tried to get them to understand that, and we've had some differences. When you're dealing with girls, you're going to deal with problems unlike boys. But they kind of found a way to hold it together. We got that straightened out, for the most part.''

Smith said he used a "cheesy'' analogy to get the point across to his athletes.

"I said, if you're making brownies and you use bad ingredients, you get bad brownies,'' he said. "They seemed to go with that.''

Of course, as track coaches know, obstacles can pop up out of nowhere this time of year - muscle pulls, false starts, dropped batons, even unexpected disqualifications for something like wearing earrings to the starting line.

And when you're Oak Hill, and you haven't won a state track title of any kind since a boys trophy in 1937, you're not counting your profits just yet. Just this week, Lawson's been bothered by a sore leg.

"Like you say, anything can happen,'' Smith said. "Shady qualified as many as we did, and they beat us head-to-head a couple meets this year. Philip Barbour has some good times and Roane kind of scares me with their good distance runners.

"Then you're talking about kids running head-to-head. How are they going to perform? Sure, they may have run decent times in the regionals or past meets, but it's hard to say what happens when you run someone head-to-head. It's something you can't account for. It's little things like that ... you never know.''

Reach Rick Ryan at                     304-348-5175 or rickr...@wvgazette.com.