Submitted photos Runners get the first leg of the inaugural Jack and Jill Relay race underway at Beverly’s Camp Pioneer on Saturday.

BEVERLY — It is rare to find a more formidable coed cross-country foursome than Elkins High School’s Josh Bodkins, Julia Biola, Trevor George, and Emilia Tenney. Indeed, those four beat a competitive field on Saturday that included 41 coed relay squads from 10 schools at the Mountain State Forest Festival’s inaugural Jack & Jill Relays.

“We borrowed the ‘Jack and Jill’ concept from the Forest Festival’s lumberjack competition,” said EHS coach Scott Biola. “We combined that idea with something that is pretty similar to Preston High School’s relay cross-country meet.”

Biola’s reference to the MSFF “Jack and Jill Crosscut Sawing” male-female competition explains the coed nature of this event, which featured boy-girl-boy-girl relay squads. Like Preston’s Knight Night Relays, the Jack & Jill Relays consisted of four runners each traversing a 2,500-meter course at Beverly’s Camp Pioneer.

The Tigers’ top squad of Bodkins, Biola, George, and Tenney combined for a time of 33:39 to outpace runner-up Morgantown’s 34:58 and third place Hurricane’s 35:32.

Buckhannon-Upshur also partook in the event, with the foursome of Joey Nolte, Isabella Bowers, Alex Sappey, and Gwendolyn Ragosky combining for a seventh place effort in 36:50.

Other top area teams included an eleventh place finish in 37:28 by Elkins’ Ben Tenney, Molly McFadden, Treven Schaefer, and Mya Mendelson.

Elkins Middle School cohosted the event, which attracted 42 relay teams from nine different middle schools. East Fairmont’s Chase DeVault, Quinn Barnes, Andrew Ford, and Hope Harris combined to win the middle school competition in 38:00.

EMS’s top relay took eighth in 41:52. That foursome consisted of Grant Morgan, Kendall Ward, Silas Osborne, and Clara Pyles.

“It was great to see both middle and high school families helping with whatever was needed to make the event run smoothly,” said EMS coach Adam Romano. “There were many coaches from other schools that mentioned how helpful the volunteers were.”

The EMS and EHS harriers will both be idle in early October before EMS returns to action at the Mid-Mountain 10 Conference Championships on October 11 (at West Taylor Elementary); EHS races next at the Big 10 Championships on October 16 (at BUHS).

The inaugural Jack and Jill Relay winners: Josh Bodkins, Julia Biola, Trevor George and Emilia Tenney.