UC Boys, Katelyn Edmond Headed To State Cross Country Championships

By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–Union City beat itself and everyone else in the field on its way to its first-ever regional cross country championship.
A return trip berth to the state meet was simply icing on the cake.
The Golden Tornado boys’ team continued its season-long trend of besting previous times and won the Region 7 Small Class championship for the first time in program history at Martin-Westview Tuesday.
The quartet of Dalton Bone, BJ Frankum, Cedrion Cook and Matthew Parr finished third, fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively -‑ all breaking the 20-minute mark -‑ to highlight UC’s best overall effort of the season.
The Purple and Gold earned a second straight trip to Percy Warner Park in Nashville, the annual site of the TSSAA State Cross Country event, with the record showing. The Small Class meet will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 3.
UC head coach Katie Parr and her assistant and husband, John, will also carry Katelyn Edmond on the trek after Edmond placed seventh in a large girls field to earn a state berth.
The emotional Edmond celebrated with a long emotional embrace with her mother, Sarah Walker, immediately afterward, repeatedly saying: “I’ve got one more (race) to run.”
Bone (18:50), Frankum (19:06), Cook (19:13) and Parr (19:20) all medaled and again made up the core of a strong UC boys’ unit that not only built on last year’s history-making season, but also regularly improved each time out this fall. The Twisters finished with 43 points Tuesday to claim the region’s top spot.
“A lot of what we do as far as motivating ourselves is saying it’s you against yourself,” a jubilant Katie Parr said after Thursday’s meet. “Our Top 5 runners from last year were all back and, while last year we sort of shocked the world, this year we wanted to live up to last year and show that we were even better this year.  We did that by beating our previous best times a lot and posting personal records. We made great gains since our first meet in August.
“And I’m just over-the-moon about Katelyn qualifying. We’d had a talk about this being her last shot and I told her she needed a 24-something to get there. She ran a 24:26.  She put a lot of pressure on herself, but she was motivated and able to do it. I’m just thrilled for her.”
Reice Gray finished 29^th for the boys with a time of 22:23, while Cameron McLendon posted a time of 24:30 that was good for 45^th place.
Lizzy Jones posted a Top 20 finish for the Lady Tornadoes, clocked at 26:49. Natalie Johnson and Emilia Maldonado were 41^st and 42^nd, respectively, two seconds apart at 31:40 and 31:42.
Photo: Katelyn Edmond shares an embrace with her mother, Sarah Walker. (Mike Hutchens photo).