Cristian Buckley

In the District 2 Class 2A final against Mid Valley, Buckley scored three touchdowns on seven touches, and Dunmore won 42-7. One was a 42-yard catch from Steve Borgia. Another was a 12-yard run in the third quarter.

Buckley is the younger brother of Michael Perry and Daiqwon Buckley, the Dunmore backs named in the Nov. 12, 2019 story. Perry had run for 6,555 yards and led Dunmore to the 2007 PIAA final. Daiqwon had run for 6,073 yards, and Dunmore reached the 2012 PIAA final. As a freshman, Cristian ran for 500 yards and three touchdowns. He ran for 226 yards and a touchdown in the PIAA playoffs that season. As a sophomore he ran for 796 yards and 11 touchdowns and caught 11 passes for 221 yards and five touchdowns.

Entering the Bishop McDevitt game, the same story had his junior season at 685 yards rushing and 16 touchdowns, with 21 receptions for 469 yards and six touchdowns.

The 2020 All-Region team lists him as a senior, 6 feet and 180 pounds. In six games he ran 165 times for 1,058 yards, 8.6 a carry, with six total touchdowns. The season high was 313 yards against Wallenpaupack. The career line in that story is 3,143 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns, plus 829 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns. He was a Lackawanna Football Conference Division III-IV first-team running back and a second-team All-Region pick, and Dunmore won the District 2 Class 2A championship.

On Oct. 2, 2020, at Wallenpaupack High School, the first carry of his final season went 75 yards for a touchdown. Dunmore won 17-6. He finished with 313 yards, returned the second-half kickoff 41 yards, and caught a 14-yard pass on fourth-and-10. He also carried on all seven plays of the last drive. Kevin McHale said he played free safety that week and was usually a corner.

He played running back at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The 2024 roster bio has 16 carries for 74 yards in 2021, 62 carries for 249 yards in 2022, 89 carries for 494 yards and eight touchdowns in 2023, and 44 carries for 143 yards and two touchdowns in eight games in 2024. He is the son of Connie and Michael Buckley. The bio says one brother played at Bryant and another at Temple.