KINGWOOD – The Buckhannon-Upshur Buccaneers ran fifth at the Region I Cross Country Championships Thursday at Preston High School.

The Bucs totaled 137 points in the toughest region in the state for their fifth-place performance, which comes on the heels of them earning runner-up honors in the Big 10 Conference meet last week.

“Unfortunately, the boys fell a little short in effort and finished fifth behind some of the best teams in the state,” remarked Buckhannon-Upshur head coach Taylor Stacy. “I am still super proud of how they competed.”

University won the team title with 20 points while Wheeling Park was second with 55. Morgantown was third with 94 points and Bridgeport was in front of the Bucs in fourth with 129 points.

Behind B-U were Preston in sixth with 140 points, John Marshall was seventh with 176 points and Brooke was eighth with 220.

University took the top four positions as Josh Edwards won the race in 16:24.56 while Rocco DeVincent was second (16:36.03), Ryan Blohm was third (16:42.53) and Drew Zundell was fourth (16.42.82).

The top runner for the Bucs was Jordan Gillum who placed 15^th with a time of 17:33.12.

The rest of the B-U line-up was Reis Leonard in 23^rd (18:23.78), Logan Wyatt in 31^st (19:05.78), Jack Waggy in 33^rd (19:15.59), Brycen Allen in 35^th (19:36.18), Alex Casto in 46^th (21:37.69) and Rhett Ammons in 54^th (26:10.50).

“The boys have come a long way this year and have shown great improvement from the beginning of the season,” concluded Stacy. “They have nothing to hang their heads about. We’re going to use this result as motivation for rolling into next year.”

The top three teams and top 11 runners advanced to the state meet.

The state championship meet will take place Saturday at Cabell Midland High School.