TENNERTON – Sometimes fairy tales come true. But this isn’t a story of a wolf blowing down stick and straw houses, this is a story of a dominant performer on the cross-country fields blowing away her competition.
This is a story of Buckhannon-Upshur’s Samantha Shreve, who just finished her senior cross-country season as the best in the state.
Prior to winning the state title this year, Shreve piled up championships in the Big 10 Conference and the Region I meets, before saving her best for last in the West Virginia State XC Championships at Cabell Midland High School. Shreve won the state title in convincing fashion, leading the race from start to finish with a time of 18:27.83, almost a full 13 seconds ahead of University’s Abigail Rogers, who placed second.
In crossing the finish line first, Shreve also made history as she became the first individual runner from Buckhannon-Upshur to claim an individual cross-country title (the 1993 boys won the first state team cross country title).
Shreve said it was an amazing feeling to be the first individual champion from Buckhannon-Upshur.
“It means a lot,” said Shreve. “All that hard work paid off in the end, and it feels nice to be first at Buckhannon-Upshur to do it. It shows what can happen if you put in the work for something. This championship wasn’t just for me but for the school. The school has a championship under their belt individually in this sport now. Knowing that I could bring that to the school is a wonderful feeling, and hopefully, I can continue on this spring in track and field and win one, too.”
Shreve said her senior season was like a fairy tale as she was not only dominant in the championship run but the regular season as well, routinely winning meets by over a minute.
“The whole season felt like a fairy tale,” remarked Shreve. “I worked so hard for it, but at times, it really hasn’t sunk in yet. I am not really there to reflect on it yet. It’s nice to know that my senior season went so well for me. As I said, the hard work finally paid off.”
For Shreve, the fairy tale season was a bit of redemption for her after a horror film ending to her junior season. A calf strain injury prior to the Big 10 Conference Championships derailed her efforts for a state title. As she ran through the injury at regionals, she placed a disappointing 15th and failed to qualify for states. This was after finishing an impressive 11th place at states as a freshman and sixth as a sophomore.
“The injury happened a little bit before the Big 10 race, and it just built from there,” said Shreve. “It kept getting worse, and if I had gone to states, I would have needed surgery. It was disappointing not making states after going my freshman and sophomore years, but in those instances, you just have to prepare for the worst sometimes. You have to know you can build from it, and you can’t give up. You have to keep going and build.”
Shreve credited her head coach, Taylor Stacy, for getting her back on track after the injury and guiding her to a state title.
“I’ve dealing with him for seven years,” joked Shreve as Stacy also coached her at the middle school level. “He stuck with us when my class moved up from the middle school to the high school. He is so dedicated to the team. We have a coach that loves us and treats us like his family, and we build off of that.”
“You just can’t speak enough about the seven years of seeing the dedication that Sam put into this sport,” remarked Stacy. “The determination to wake up every day and do those early morning runs when no one is watching, to go into those hour-long runs by yourself, it speaks of the sacrifices she has had to make. She gave up a lot of time with friends and family to get her training in. I just hope people see her accomplishment and understand that this was seven years of dedication to getting there, and that isn’t something to be taken lightly. Getting to this point of being the best in the state is something we saw back then out of Sam, but it was a question of how badly she wanted it, and she proved to everyone in the state that she really, really wanted it.”
Taylor also noted how much more competitive cross country is in 2024 than when Shreve began running as a freshman in 2021.
“Just to put in perspective how far the sport has come in the last few years, Sam’s time at states when she was a freshman (20:24.30), where she placed 11th, wouldn’t have even put her in the top 25 this year,” noted Stacy. “That is how much the entire state has improved. So, for her to go out and be the best of the best when the competition is just getting faster and faster shows her continuous efforts of never taking a day off and always putting in her best effort.”
Shreve added, “It really started in my junior year that I thought I could win a state championship. It just built from there that I could actually do it, that I actually could win it. You just have to put the work in and stay consistent. “
Shreve’s love of running started at an early age, and it was a passion that never ceased to grow.
“When I was in elementary school, I would compete in Rachel’s Challenge, where you would just run, run, and run. So, my love of running grew from that. My parents told me when I was young that when we used to go for walks around the track, I would always want to run instead of walking. My love of running really just grew from that.”
That early love of running and pure dedication to her sport has made Shreve the best ever to do it at Buckhannon-Upshur and the state of West Virginia. And that is no fairy tale!
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