At least in boys’ basketball and baseball.
Chapmanville Regional Athletics Director Danny Godby confirmed this week what has been rumored for more than a month.
The Tigers-Wildcats series in basketball and baseball is dead.
Godby said the decision was mandated by the Logan County School Board, citing two recent brawls which have happened in the last two years during games between the two Logan County rivals.
Two seasons ago during Logan’s 96-91 win at home over Chapmanville at Logan’s Willie Akers Arena, a bench-clearing brawl involving players from both teams put a black mark on an otherwise splendid display of high school basketball from the Wildcats and the Tigers.
Then this past baseball season, a fight broke out in the stands following Logan’s 4-1 victory over Chapmanville at Logan’s Roger E. Gertz Field. The teams were scheduled to play a second game the following week but the schools were ordered not to play again.
Godby said he hates to see the series come to an end.
“It’s over. I hated to see that because it was such a great money game,” Godby said. “They aren’t going to be playing each other in baseball either.”
Logan High School Athletics Director Roger Gertz said he hates to see it go, too.
“I feel the same way. We hope to someday get it renewed. It was an administrative decision by the Board,” Gertz said.
The ending of the series in basketball seems to hurt Chapmanville more.
Even though the Tigers were not successful against Logan, losing all 21 meetings since the series was resumed in 2002, Chapmanville was sure to pack its gymnasium when the Wildcats came to town. Logan always had a big crowd at the field house, too, when Chapmanville came to play.
After the on-court brawl, the two teams met up again later in the 2009-10 season at Chapmanville and Godby said he sold a capacity 1,800 tickets for the game. Several more were turned away as the game had already sold out.
“Two years ago, I stood in the cafeteria and sold tickets until the game was sold out at noon,” Godby said.
Logan and Chapmanville are still scheduled to meet this fall in football and the series in girls’ softball, girls’ basketball, tennis, golf and volleyball are still on, Godby said.
“Everything is still going to be played except for baseball and basketball,” he said. “Wilma (Zigmond, Logan County Schools Superintendent) sat this down.”
The Wildcats and Tigers played a spirited rivalry on the baseball diamond over the years.
Logan, again, has had the upper hand in the last decade-plus, going 29-5 over Chapmanville since 1999 and besting the Tigers from 2003-08 when LHS was in a three-team Double-A sectional with Chapmanville and Scott.
Chapmanville and Logan, however, played many memorable baseball games over the years.
A game in 2001 was one for the ages.
In that one, Class AAA No. 1-ranked and unbeaten Logan (17-0), hosted Class AA No. 1-ranked and unbeaten Chapmanville (20-0). The game drew so much interest that, in a rarity, local TV camera were on hand to film a regular season game.
Then Chapmanville baseball coach Ted Ellis was a radio guest on the “Statewide Sportsline.”
An estimated 1,500 fans jammed into the Logan baseball field to watch Brandon Chambers and the homestanding Wildcats top Aaron Kelly, Casey Bowling and the Chapmanville Tigers 3-1.
Godby was in his last year as Coach Ellis’ assistant coach. Chapmanville went on to go 30-5 and make it to the state tournament. Logan ended up repeating as the Class AAA state champs.
“We were both number one and unbeaten. That was big,” Godby said. “The thing about rivalries like that is that everyone in Logan wishes Chapmanville the best and everyone in Chapmanville wishes Logan the best when they play but when they play each other it’s a heated rivalry. Those kinds of games are magnified in people’s minds and something is said or something is done and it’s magnified to what the intent really is. This year was a tough situation but it basically didn’t have anything to do with baseball.”
The Logan baseball team ended up winning the last six meetings in the series, including wins of 2-0 and 11-6 in the 2010 campaign and an 8-2 victory in 2009. The second game in ‘09 was rained out.
Logan went 4-1 over the Tigers in 2008, taking wins of 13-4 and 4-3 in the regular season and then going 2-1 against Chapmanville in the Class AA sectional, which was held at LHS. That year, after Scott was already eliminated from the sectional tourney, Chapmanville took a one-game lead on the Wildcats with a resounding 11-0 victory over the Cats. Logan then bounced back to win the sectional by reeling off two straight wins by 11-1 and 8-5 scores.
It was the second straight year Logan had dug itself out of a hole to top Chapmanville for the sectional crown.
Back in 2007, the two clashed again at the just-opened new Ted Ellis Field in Chapmanville.
The Tigers took a 1-0 series lead on Logan with an 11-2 spanking of the Wildcats. Logan then won 10-1 and 7-4 over the Tigers to take the sectional title. Chapmanville committed nine errors in the decisive third game.
Logan went 3-1 against Chapmanville in 2006, falling to the Tigers 8-1 and then taking four straight, including a pair of 3-1 wins in the sectional tourney at Scott.
The Cats and Tigers met three times in 2005 with Logan going 4-0. One of those meetings was in a Spring Break game at Myrtle Beach, S.C., in which the Wildcats won 9-2. Logan then took three straight, including a pair of wins in the sectionals.
Logan was 2-0 against the Tigers in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002.
In 2003, the two teams split during the regular season before Logan won 2-1 over Chapmanville in the sectionals at the old Ted Ellis Field. The Tigers then bounced back behind a complete-game one-hitter from Jon Adams to shut out the Wildcats 7-0, forcing a winner-take-all final. Logan then routed the Tigers 13-1 in the sectional championship game.
Logan was then 2-0 over Chapmanville in 2004.
It was a different story on the basketball floor as Logan routed Chapmanville more often than not. Chapmanville hasn’t beaten Logan in basketball since the 1950s.
The Wildcats, winners of the Class AA state crown in 2005 and the Triple-A state title in 2010, went 21-0 against Chapmanville when the series was restarted for the 2002-03 seasons.
Logan won by an average margin of 20 points the last nine seasons the series has been played.
There were a few gems, however. In the game two years ago which involved the fight, Coach Harry Kirk’s Tigers rallied to take a late lead with about two minutes to go on Coach Mark Hatcher’s Wildcats, which were led by Noah Cottrill and Paul Herbert Williamson. The Wildcats then rallied to win by five.
In the 2004-05 season, Chapmanville, then led by head coach Dave Elkins, were competitive against Logan, falling 53-43, 63-50 and then falling 49-38 in the Class AA regional championship game at Williamson.
The two met again in the regional final the following season with Logan pounding on the Tigers 88-61 at Williamson.
Back in 2004, Logan and Chapmanville met in the post-season again with the Cats winning 60-44 on the same Williamson floor.
In the first meeting back in the fall of 2002, Logan squeaked by Chapmanville by only a 52-49 score.
But there were many blowouts.
In the 2005-06 season Logan blasted the Tigers 101-50 at the field house.
Logan also owns a pair of 33-point wins, including a 108-75 victory two seasons ago before a packed house at the CRHS gym.
n Scott basketball coach Jason Kingery has reportedly resigned to take a coaching position in Pennsylvania.
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