A pair of local athletes signed national letters of intent Wednesday, with Greenwood’s Trey Warren signing to run track and cross-country at Milligan College in Johnson City, Tenn., and Franklin-Simpson’s Tanner Clark signing to play basketball at Centre College in Danville.

“It’s just a correlation of all I’ve been through,” Warren said. “The couple thousand miles I’ve been running, it all comes down to that moment where I know I will be able to do it for the next four years. It’s not the pinnacle, it’s the mile marker. If I could correlate it to running, it would be the mile marker in a long race.”

Warren said he chose Milligan over Lindsey Wilson, Campbellsville and Union because he was impressed with the program’s success.

“They’ve had a lot of national finishers and stuff,” Warren said. “There is a recruiting class I’m coming in with that is all really, really solid runners. It seems like a really good team unit that is coming up.”

Warren said he will compete in both track and cross-country, but track will be his main focus. He added he’s happy he can now focus on the remainder of Greenwood’s track season instead of recruiting.

“It’s cool to be able to get it early in the season,” Warren said. “Now I don’t have to stay up late talking to coaches and stuff. I can concentrate on my school work and running.”

Clark said he had more than one reason for choosing Centre over Arkansas-Monticello, North Greenville University in South Carolina, Dallas Baptist University, Transylvania and several other schools.

“In this day and age you really need to have a great education,” Clark said. “I feel like Centre is going to prepare me after college. There were a lot of schools offering, but I felt like Centre had the best education to offer.

“I really like how their team plays. They have a lot of talent and a lot of good guys coming back. I know some people going up there. I don’t mind being away from home, but I feel like my family is going to get ample opportunities to see me play.”

Clark led the Wildcats in scoring and rebounding last season, averaging 16 points and five boards. He became the 17th player in Franklin history to score at least 1,000 points, ranking 14th on the all-time scoring list with 1,085 points.

Clark said he is relieved to have the recruiting process behind him.

“I committed about three weeks to a month ago and that was a relief, but to officially get it done, that is an even bigger relief,” Clark said. “I can really try to enjoy these last three weeks (of high school). I like school and have had a really good four years here at Franklin-Simpson. I’m just trying to enjoy it.”