Members of the Parkersburg High School boys cross country team will compete at the WVSSAC High School State Cross Country Meet on Saturday at Cabell Midland High School in Ona. (Photo provided)

PARKERSBURG — Now in his fourth year of his second stint as head coach, Parkersburg High School cross country coach, Big Reds head coach George Angelos is more than excited for Saturday’s final Mountain State race of the season.

While the boys and girls in red and white aren’t expected to bring home any equipment from the state meet in Ona at Cabell Midland, which starts at noon for the girls and 12:45 p.m. for the boys, it’s enough to say things. going in the right direction for PHS.

“I’ve really bought into what it takes to have a good program and what it takes to be good at this sport, even though our middle school program has been the bottom half of the county since I’ve been coaching,” said coach Angelos, whose top predicted by runwv.com are junior Connor George (8th) and Morgan Metz (15th).

“We had a lot of kids buy in and step up and now they’re one of the best teams in the state

and I really give them a lot of credit.”

The PHS boys are coming off a Region IV championship over runner-up Cabell Midland, 47-49, in which Parkersburg South’s Josh Gill earned a spot over Ona by finishing sixth.

The Knights upended the Big Reds, 41-43, earlier in the Mountain State Athletic Conference championships, where George led the boys with a fourth-place effort and Metz finished third to help the girls to the second in MSAC.

“We just have a very strong group of guys, very tight, very committed, very focused, with just big goals.” admitted coach Angelos, who also has senior Walker Jones and junior Ricardo Salazar projected for a top-25 finish.

The boys will also run seniors Christian Rutherford and Lucas Jenkins, junior Anthony Herrera and freshman Rogan Mincks.

“They were amazingly coached this year” Angelos added. “Their goal was to finish in the top three at every meet during the season and they did that at every meet they competed in that we ran our top guys at.

“They achieved that goal and they achieved their academic goal. I think it was 3.9, I think the teams GPA, and now we’re coming off just our first regional championship in over 20 years and just our second in the last 40.”

A challenging schedule certainly helped.

“We really wanted to create a schedule that was a balance of fun and creativity, but challenging, and we didn’t have a single meet other than the dual that was required that had less than 20 teams.” Angelos said. “We wanted to be battle-tested this time of year. I ran a race in Chicago, which was a monster race. I did two really big races in Ohio. Les Eisenhart was like one of the top running backs in the state of Ohio.

“We’re actually going to North Carolina as a team to compete in the (Nike Southeast Regional on Nov. 23), so four states on our schedule this year and our guys are battle-tested. They’ve been kind of overlooked for most of the year and come in fourth, which is their highest ranking all year, but I really feel like they have a chance to continue to shine like they have all year. You know the state meet is unpredictable and we’re excited to get some sleep.”

The Big Red girls are projected to finish fifth and will also run seniors Katie Rutherford, Ellie Hines, Olivia Carpenter, sophomore Audrey Wagoner, and freshmen Calli Angelos and Brie Winans.

“Carpenter will run this weekend and (senior) Thea (Bourdeaux) will be the alternate,” said the coach, who did not have Carpenter available at the regional.

The climb continued for the PHS girls as well.

“Our group was just like the boys” Coach Angelos continued. “Very focused, very committed, very consistent. Obviously we have senior leadership with Katie Rutherford and Ellie Hines and Olivia Carpenter have provided great leadership and then we have the freshmen in Calli and Brie Winans. Brie was a huge surprise and really helped us and Audrey Waggoner is a former county champion. Our girls have been solid all year and they came in and just had a tremendous season.

“The triple-A field, though up there, is extremely loaded. If you look at University, Morgantown and Cabell, I mean we’re missing the top three, that’s not something that’s happened in a long time. Breaking the top three will be a huge challenge, but we’re in the hunt. We’re in that top-five bracket, just like our guys and state meet on Saturday, when things can get crazy, we like the stability of our team to go in there and maybe shock some people.”

Although the Big Reds will lose some quality seniors to graduation, Angelos firmly believes that the PHS program just needs to continue to stay the course.

“We will have to continue to develop runners who love the sport, have talent and want to put in the time.” the coach pointed out.

“We’re proving with a lot of these kids like Brie Winans and Ricardo Salazar and a lot of them, we’re proving that we can develop runners and we’re going to have to continue to do that.”