By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–The Union City High School boys’ cross country program is truly on the rise.
Making their third consecutive appearance at the state meet at Percy Warner Park in Nashville Saturday, the Tornadoes posted their best-ever finish with a sixth-place team showing among 24 entries in the Small Division championships.
Junior BJ Frankum highlighted UC’s effort, placing third overall in a field of 173 individual runners.
Frankum – who wore a walking boot earlier in the week, but showed tremendous determination and no ill effects of the injury Saturday — posted the best state finish by a Tornado participant in the modern era, surpassing Daniel Williamson’s 10th-place showing in 2012.
Union City’s Andy Russell was the individual state runner-up in 1963 when there were no classifications, but it should be noted the course then covered two miles, while the current trek is 3.1 miles.
Russell later won a pair of state titles in spring track for the Purple and Gold.
Saturday, though, belonged to Frankum and the current group of Tornado runners, who bettered last year’s state finish by one place. UC was 18th in its first state meet trip in November of 2017.
Head coach Katie Parr insisted the Twister boys are now capable of running with the state’s “big dogs.”
“We are and we’re going to keep on doing that,” she proudly stated. “To have someone (Frankum) on that (Top 15) podium was awesome, and our goal is to have a couple of more next year. Our top couple of guys after BJ also had significantly better finishes from last year and had much better times.
“I’m so proud of all of our guys, and especially BJ. He works so hard and wants it so bad. That’s a great combination. We treated a little foot problem he had earlier in the week, but he competed with great grit today.”
Frankum, who claimed the individual championships in both the regional and UC Invitational earlier this fall, finished 19th last year at the state meet. He cut more than a minute off his time between his sophomore and junior campaigns, finishing Saturday at 17:11.85, after turning in a time of 18:23 last year.
Sophomore Cedrion Cook (18:16.47) and junior Mathew Parr (18:37.75) finished 22nd and 34th, respectfully, after placing 41st and 58th in 2018.
Ben Martinek was 55th with a time of 19:17.70 for the Tornadoes to cap his solid junior season.
Rounding out the Union City finishers were juniors Grant Jernigan, 122nd, 21:14.27 and Colby Butler, 125th, 21:17.17; and the team’s lone senior, Tucker Rivers, 146th, 22:07.22.
UC’s average time among its Top 5 that counted in the point standings was 18:55.60.
Parr confessed that expectations for next year’s team would be even higher on the heels of a pair of strong finishes the last two seasons and the return of Frankum, Cook, Parr and Martinek, among others.
“We’ll have some great experience returning and I know they guys will be hungry to do even better,” the UC coach claimed. “They had a goal of a Top 3 finish today and, that they didn’t quite make that, will be even more incentive for them, I believe.
“And I’m hoping that this run of success will build interest in some of our younger prospects in school who’ve already expressed an interest in joining the program.”
Lady Tornado girls’ runner Kaitlyn Lamb, who qualified for the big stage with a Top 6 regional finish, was unable to participate due to a broken ankle that she suffered in a gutty region race.
Lamb was in attendance, though, and cheered her teammates on enthusiastically, along with a large contingent of Union City supporters.
Signal Mountain won both the boys’ and girls’ championships in the Small Division.
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