Region I cross-country meet has controversy as Gillum will represent B-U at states

WELLSBURG –Jordan Gillum will represent the Buckhannon-Upshur cross country Buccaneers in the state meet this Saturday at Cabell Midland after a top 10 finish in the Region I championships last week at Brooke High School.

Gillum finished ninth with a time of 16:46.54.

There was plenty of controversy to go around for the Bucs involving Jack Waggy and his 11^th place finish.

The top 20 percent of the runners advance to the state tournament, and that was scheduled to be the top 11 in Region 1 with the number of runners slated to run. Only prior to the race, three Brooke runners failed to start or compete in the race lowering the number going to states from 11 to 10.

The Bucs and Waggy thought he was headed to states only to be informed after the race that he wouldn’t be making the trip.

The team appealed the ruling that Waggy would not be advancing to the state championship and locally a petition was started to get Waggy to Huntington for the state meet this Saturday, but as of Thursday night, it did not appear that the appeal would be granted by the WVSSAC.

The top three teams also advanced to the state meet and the Bucs finished just outside of that top three placing fourth just four points out third place in the seven-team event.

University took the top five spots to win the team crown with 15 points while Wheeling Park was second with 53 points and Morgantown was third with 90.

The Bucs claimed fourth with 94 points.

The other three scoring Bucs behind Giliam and Waggy were Reis Leonard in 19^th (17:28.70), Brycen Allen in 27^th (18:08.64) and Joey Nolte in 29^th (18:13.73).

The two other Bucs competing were Owen Cutright in 29^th (18:37.59) and Alex Sappey in 30^th (19:04.36).

As a team, Buckhannon-Upshur head coach Taylor Stacy said his runners couldn’t have preformed much better.

“Wow, what an effort by the boys,” stated Stacy. “They were predicted to miss third place by 22 points and ended up only four points behind Morgantown for the last team spot for states. The boys gave Morgantown the best race they could and they have nothing to hang their heads on.  It’s been great watching Reis, Brycen and the other seniors mature into strong leaders I could always depend on. It’s been an honor to coach them all.”

Ryan Blohm of University won the regional title with a time of 16:22.52 while teammates Drew Zundell (16:22.71), Jacob West (16:23.14), Ethan Conroy (16:28.77) and Tyler Umbright (16:34.16) finishing second, third, fourth and fifth respectively.

Region I is the most competitive region in Class AAA as four of the top eight teams in the state compete there as University was first, Wheeling Park third, Morgantown sixth and the Bucs were eighth.