Making Strides For The Mountain State 

Ripley’s Tori Starcher continuing to put West Virginia on the prep running map

By Marlowe Hereford for DyeStat

The exploits of Tori Starcher have been well known in Ripley, W.V. and surrounding areas for the better part of a decade. 

The self-described ‘super competitive kid who would race the boys,’ Starcher began training at age 7 with Capital City Striders, a track program based 37 miles away in West Virginia’s capital of Charleston. By age 8, Starcher made her county’s newspaper upon qualifying for the 2010 AAU Junior Olympics in the 100, 400 and 800 meters and recording a 400 personal-best time (1:14.27) —  top 30 in the U.S. among girls her age.

Jimmy and Hilary Groves, husband and wife and Ripley High graduates who became the cross country coaches of the high school and middle school programs in 2005, have known Starcher since she was in kindergarten. 

“She was a great athlete who was winning everything (growing up),” Jimmy Groves said. “When she was 9, I was like, ‘Let’s take it easy and see what she becomes.’” 

Starcher has become something. She has won a combined nine state titles in track and cross country, owns four school records, an all-time state record, two Gatorade Player of the Year awards and a Foot Locker National Championships appearance. 

“She’s quite fantastic,” he said. “When she was in sixth grade, she was training with my boys. I knew I had something very special. Did I think I had this? Probably not.” 

Now a junior at Ripley, Starcher is edging into a bigger impact nationally. She is ranked 26th nationally by DyeStat.

West Virginia’s defending Class AAA individual champion, Starcher enters Thursday’s WV Class AAA Region IV championships with the fastest time in the state and has won five of her six 5,000-meter races this season. 

Since missing the entire 2016 cross country season with an injury in the growth plate of her left foot, she has won 14 of the 17 5k races she has competed in and joined University’s Millie Paladino (2012 & 2013) and St. Marys’ Maggie Drazba (2012) as West Virginia’s only female Foot Locker National qualifiers.

Last spring, she ran an all-time West Virginia best of 2:07.42 in the 800 meters. Her running career has taken her away from Ripley to compete at the New Balance Nationals (Indoor and Outdoor), the Penn Relays, Foot Locker South Regionals and Foot Locker Nationals.

Those opportunities to compete with the nation’s best — and represent the Mountain State in the process — are not taken lightly by Starcher, who said she is often asked where she is from by people who overhear her accent.

“Most people think it’s western Virginia,” Starcher said. “I’ve just been so blessed and fortunate with the experiences I’ve been able to go through and achieve throughout running. I have so many opportunities that have been given to me just because of it. West Virginia is obviously pretty small and not as well known. I am really proud to represent it.” 

Sprinter Turned Distance Phenom

Starcher’s transition to distance running was not only a new venture for her, but for her entire family.

Her mother, Keri, was a hurdler at Ravenswood High — also in Jackson County — while her father, Joe, was involved in other sports at the former Spencer High in neighboring Roane County. By the end of elementary school, Starcher’s progression in the 800 was noticeable enough that a switch to distance events was imminent.

Starcher said she became the first distance runner in her family upon trading sprints for distance in middle school. The switch suited her. She ran 4:54.89 in the 1,500 meters and won the 800, 1,500 and 3,000 as a 13-year old at the 2015 USATF Region 5 Junior Olympic Outdoor Championships in Goshen, Ky.

The competitiveness from her sprinting days stayed with her, however, as evidenced by her first middle school cross country practice. 

“I was determined to be the first one across the course,” Starcher said. “It was a time trial. Right after finishing, I just puked everywhere. I definitely wasn’t prepared when I first began. I wasn’t really crazy about (cross country) at the beginning part of the season. As years went by, I’ve learned to love it.”

The sprinter in Starcher also endures in what Jimmy Groves identifies as one of her best strengths: form. It is so textbook that he had a promising Ripley seventh grader observe Starcher during track workouts at a recent practice.

“We were watching Tori and I was explaining to the young lady about form,” Groves said. “Tori Starcher has a 56 (second) 400 in her back pocket all the time. Once she gets within 400 (to the finish line), it’s over. No one can catch her.”

Starcher credited her coaches from Capital City Striders for spending 30 minutes to an hour per practice emphasizing form and fundamentals. She still applies that mentality to distance events.

“They just pound fundamentals into your head,” Starcher said. “Right now, I think good form is so helpful for speed and not wasting any energy.” 

While Capital City Striders helped set the foundation for her strengths, the Morgantown based WV Flyers track club has helped hone them. Coming off eight months recovering from the growth plate injury, Starcher noticed the girls who were having the biggest improvements during the 2017 indoor track season were members of WV Flyers. Starcher also learned that Flyers coach Jonathan Wright had coached Paladino and Drazba — both of whom went on to run for Division 1 schools — and she decided to train with them.

Since mid-January of 2017, Starcher has spent her offseasons with the Flyers. The balancing act gets busier in November, when she begins making the 292-mile round trip to Morgantown once a week to train with the Flyers at West Virginia University’s facilities.

“I get back at 11 (p.m.),” she said. “That is a little bit crazy during school. I almost look forward to it because I always know I’ll get a good workout in.”

WV Flyers was not the only good thing to come from her freshman year. While in a cast, boot and undergoing physical therapy, she had a growth spurt. That, combined with the new training schedule with the Flyers, paid off with four gold medals at the 2017 West Virginia state track championships.

“To have that extra height and strength helped her a ton,” Groves said. “She takes longer strides.” 

‘Full Package’

Located in Jackson County, east of Interstate 77 and at 616 feet elevation, Ripley is a town of 3,242 people. The cross country teams practice at Cedar Lakes, a nearby retreat center and park with hills and a covered bridge that serves as the home meet venue. Otherwise, options for running are limited. 

“Other than that, I run on the roads wherever there’s not too much traffic,” Starcher said. “There’s not too many places to run in Ripley.”

Starcher's team is small. With enrollment right around 1,000 students, Ripley is the smallest school in West Virginia’s large-school Class AAA. There are 20 athletes out for cross country, nine boys and 11 girls. 

“Really, the only teams that we have trouble beating are the schools that are double in population,” Groves said. “We shoot for 45 miles week. It’s way different than when I ran. We don’t run three miles a day and call it good.”

Small numbers and limited venues aside, Starcher has piqued interest in the sport in her community. People in town stay informed about her achievements and attend Ripley’s meets just to watch her run.

“They love her here,” Groves said. “I’m not sure in this community they’ve quite grasped what she’s accomplishing. If she wins the state championship, everyone understands that. Like I tell them, it’s sometimes a bigger accomplishment to win a big meet that has four or five states (represented).”

The community has also stepped in monetarily, supporting Ripley cross country fundraisers to alleviate costs of uniforms, gear and transportation. Groves said that has been especially helpful as Starcher has competed in multiple out-of-state meets the last two years.

“Her whole family has sacrificed tremendously,” Groves said. “We always have the nicest of everything because of our parents and our community.” 

Starcher said she feels that support everywhere she competes, even if Ripley faithful can’t travel with her.

“I never really thought opportunities like this would come from a sport,” Starcher said. “It’s awesome to have a small town behind you. I always know I’m gonna have people rooting for me.”

Starcher is hopeful to continue representing Ripley through December at Foot Locker Nationals in San Diego. She missed a month and a half of training over the summer due to a pain in the upper part of her hamstring, an injury that began flaring late in the spring. Aside from taking a week off, she persevered through the season because Ripley was favored to win a program first Class AAA girls team title (they did win and Starcher claimed four gold medals for the second year in a row). 

After cautiously easing into this season, Starcher is eyeing several goals. She aspires to help her team and possibly break the course record at West Virginia’s state meet on Oct. 27 in Ona, lower her personal record of 17:28 from last year’s runner-up finish at Foot Locker South Regionals, and improve on last year’s Foot Locker Nationals 29th-place finish.

“I wasn’t really happy with my race there,” Starcher said. “I also wasn’t upset because I was able to make it out there and was fortunate to race with a bunch of awesome girls. This year, I want to be more focused on competing.”

For as much as running means to her, the Groves emphasized that it is one facet of her life. In everything she has seen Starcher pursue, Hilary said she “always has a smile on her face.”

“She’s a good kid all around,” Hilary Groves said. “She’s a good student. She’s involved in her community and her church. Running is a big part of her life, but she’s a full package. The kids really like her and look up to her.” 

Some young Starcher admirers have already had the opportunity to learn from her through a youth running club Starcher started in the summer of 2017. Twice per week beginning in June, Starcher organized hour-long practices with kids fifth grade and younger. She said she created the club because she recognized that she had to travel to Charleston to get started in track, and commuting far away was not an option for several Ripley kids and parents.

“This experience has been super enjoyable and I love being an inspiration to youth in our area and seeing my younger self in some of them as well,” Starcher said.

While they also look forward to her future, her coaches are savoring the present. Starcher may not be as much of a secret outside of West Virginia as before, but the Groves said they genuinely enjoy watching the highest caliber runner they’ve ever coached take the lead at out-of-state meets and prompt stunned expressions from onlookers.

“I love going to these major meets and knowing I have the winner before it even starts,” Jimmy Groves said.