Raiders select Blasco, Bumgarner
Ben Bumgarner is Waynesburg Central's fall sports male selection in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program.
Kiana Blasco is Waynesburg Central's fall sports female selection in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program.
It蘑菇视频 been quite a fall sports season at Waynesburg Central High School and it was capped over the weekend when Ben Bumgarner won the PIAA gold in the Class AA cross country championship at Hershey.
A week or so before that event, the girls volleyball team, led by senior captain Kiana Blasco, was crowned Section 3-AA champs.
Those championships followed Aaron Yorio qualifying for the PIAA golf finals and both the girls and boys soccer teams qualified for the WPIAL playoffs.
鈥淚 think people underestimate our school because it蘑菇视频 a pretty small school, but we have a lot of good athletes here,鈥� Blasco said. 鈥淧lus academics-wise, we have a lot of smart kids.鈥�
Yes, they do. That蘑菇视频 what makes it doubly special for Bumgarner and Blasco to be selected as Waynesburg Central蘑菇视频 fall sports honorees in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program.
Blasco, daughter of Tonya and Steve Blasco of Waynesburg, maintains a 4.0 GPA and is in contention for valedictorian. She has two siblings, an older sister, Teassa Eddy (25) and a younger brother, Kyle Blasco (14). Bumgarner, son of Walter and Carol Ann Bumgarner of Waynesburg, is an only child who maintains a 3.82 GPA.
Bumgarner won the Class AA PIAA cross country championship in Hershey last weekend to cap the fall portion of an outstanding high school running career. He also runs the mile and two-mile for the track team and will run both sports in college. He also articipated running indoor track through the West Virginia Flyers track club from Morgantown.
鈥淚 haven鈥檛 decided where I want to go yet, but I will study physics or kinesiology in college,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 sort of between Pitt and Penn State right now.鈥�
He has scholarship offers from both schools, but wasn鈥檛 always such an outstanding runner, although both of his parents ran in high school.聽
鈥淩ight after cross country my freshman year, something just clicked,鈥� Bumgarner said. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 really have a watch at that point, but I knew I was going to do indoor. I would just go for a run every single day after school and just run until I was tired. I had no idea who far I was running or for how long I was running. I didn鈥檛 really think much of it I was just running. There were times when it was starting to get dark out and I wasn鈥檛 home yet and my parents were getting concerned. I had to structure it a little better. I went to a 5K in Ohio that Thanksgiving. I took two minutes off my PR from cross country, which was just a month previous and it just all started clicking.鈥�
His choice of major in college is based on his love of physics, but he isn鈥檛 ruling our medical school just yet.
鈥淚f I go into physics, I would want to study theoretical physics and work for a university,鈥� Bumgarner said. 鈥淚f I go into kinesiology, I would probably want to go into medical school and try to specialize in sports-related injuries.鈥�
He shares with Blasco a love of physics and perhaps they may both end up in medical school.
鈥淚 want to major in biology or pre-med, I鈥檓 not sure which one,鈥� Blasco said. 鈥淚 have to talk to more people about it, but I want to become a dermatologist. I am undecided where I want to go and I am undecided about playing volleyball in college, too, but right now there is a good chance that I will.鈥�
She is an outside hitter on the volleyball team. Blasco played when the Waynesburg Central volleyball team maybe won one match a season and she was there, as a senior and team captain, when they won the section title.
鈥淭here were some assistant coaches that we had to get rid of because they were about screaming and yelling instead of about improving,鈥� Blasco said. 鈥淭hen we got this assistant named Anthony and he really helped us last year, but we lost like six seniors from that team and so people started talking us down, like we were not going to be very good this year.
鈥淭hat helped our whole team focus on this year. We were like, let蘑菇视频 beat the odds and prove people wrong. We believed we still had a really good team. So that became our main focus for this year.鈥�