Dec. 5—CHARLESTON — Gavin Williams (Bridgeport), Brad Mossor (Princeton), Brennan Wack (Wheeling Park) and Boston Todd (Martinsburg) all have two things in common.
No. 1: They are some of the finest and most exciting high school football players produced from the state of West Virginia this season.
No. 2: None of them are Morgantown High quarterback Maddox Twigg.
The reason No. 3 Martinsburg was denied on Friday inside Laidley Field what would have been its third three-peat run of state championships was because the Bulldogs did not have Twigg on their roster and top-ranked Morgantown High did.
"The scariest thing about Maddox Twigg is he still has two years of high school left, " Martinsburg head coach David Walker said after the Mohigans had won their sixth state championship with a 28-21 victory over the Bulldogs. "If he was a senior out there running around, that's one thing, but he's just a sophomore.
"We planned for everything they threw at us. We planned for Maddox running the football and we just couldn't stop him. He just made plays."
In the days to come, the Kennedy Award winner will be announced. It's the top individual honor bestowed upon a high school athlete in this state. To be sure, Twigg is a finalist. Whether or not he wins the award this season isn't official, so we'll leave that right there.
But, for all intents and purposes, Twigg proved against Martinsburg just who exactly the best player in the state of West Virginia is this season, trophy or no trophy.
"It speaks for itself, " a very soaked Morgantown head coach Sean Biser said after having just received a Gatorade shower. "Just look at what he did. He's just a phenomenal kid and a great athlete. He's amazing."
Honestly, amazing kind of comes up short. Twigg was Superman against Martinsburg (11-3). He threw for 181 yards and a touchdown and added 135 yards rushing and three scores.
Even those stats don't tell his whole story. When Twigg left the game with 2:42 remaining in the third quarter — Morgantown led 28-14 at that point — he had already pulled off one of the greatest individual performances. With each scramble, each broken tackle and each third-down conversion, assistant coaches on Martinsburg's sideline could do nothing but throw their hands up in the air in disbelief.
That happened a lot.
In the first quarter, he threw about a 40-yard rope right into the hands of teammate Carter Cooper for a 62-yard gain. On fourth-and-nine at the Martinsburg 20, Twigg rolled to the right, couldn't find anyone open, so he just simply cut back to the left, broke a few tackles and made some others miss on his way to a 20-yard touchdown run.
That was his first score of the day. It wasn't his best moment, though.
That may have been in the final seconds of the second quarter. There's 38 seconds left and its third-and-10 at Morgantown's 37. Twigg dropped a pass right in the bucket to teammate Tanzer George along the sideline for a 29-yard gain. A play later, he finds Jayden Smalls on a crossing pattern through the tightest of windows down to the Martinsburg 2-yard line.
Two more years of this ? Walker is right, that is a scary thought for any Morgantown High opponent.
"I think I made the statement of showing people who I am and what I can do, " Twigg said afterwards. "I'm just ready to come back out with my brothers next year. That's the biggest thing for me."
Twigg finished with 316 total yards. Morgantown High (13-1) had 306 yards for the game. That's no typo. When the sophomore sat out a few possessions in the fourth quarter with severe leg cramps, the Mohigans could do nothing but go backwards. The only good news about that was it still took precious seconds and minutes off the clock to give Martinsburg less time for a comeback.
"We were planning like we weren't going to have him, " Biser said. "We were trying to see if we had different things we could work with. We had to adjust and try and do some different things. It didn't work, but it worked enough."
His final stats for the 2025 season look like this: 125 of 189 passing for 2, 227 yards and 26 touchdowns. Twigg also had 144 carries for 1, 073 yards and 18 touchdowns. Including a pick-6 touchdown on defense, Twigg accounted for 45 touchdowns this season.
He did come back into the game with 4:26 remaining in the fourth quarter. Morgantown High led 28-21. A couple of first downs would have done the trick, but Twigg's left leg just wasn't the same. He said after the game, neither was he, but there was no way he was going to let his teammates down.
"When I came out of the game, I had it in my mind that I was going back in, " he said. "To be honest, my cramping wasn't getting any better. You've got to do what you got to do. You got to go out there and win."
That's what the best do — win. And now there is little rest to be had.
"No, no rest. I've got basketball practice at 8 a.m. (Saturday), " Twigg said with a smile.