VERONA – Another season of high school cross country began for most area teams at the very course where their seasons will reach a culmination a couple of months from now.
The Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Invitational took place on the same course where the Section III championships are run in November, so this meet is a chance for runners to get used to the VVS layout, though weather is likely to be quite different than the sunny conditions they got last weekend.
In the Varsity 1 race on Friday, Cazenovia had its boys team in the 17-team field and finished right in the middle of the pack with 264 points, though it topped most of the small schools in a field topped by the likes of Fayetteville-Manlius, Baldwinsville and West Genesee.
Quinn Smith led the Lakers, finishing 36th in 19 minutes, 42.9 seconds. Will Austin got 48th place in the team race (50th overall) in 20:24.7.
Cassidy Gilmore earned 52nd place among team runners in 20:42.1, while Carter Ruddy had a time of 21:23.6 and Garrett Lounsbury finished in 21:35.7.
A day later, both of the Chittenango teams took part in Varsity Race 3, with the girls Bears finishing fifth out of 10 teams with 108 points as Liverpool (39 points) claimed the top spot.
Evelyn Winkoop finished 15th among team runners (20th overall) in 23:49.9, just ahead of Sophia Digennaro’s 23:52.5. Bailee Burton was 20th in the team race in 24:17 flat ahead of Mariah Stewart (25:23.9) and Laura Powers (25:28.3).
For the Chittenango boys, the story was junior Caleb LeBlanc, who roared to third place in 17:50.6, trailing only Liverpool’s Ryan Hagan (16:48.8) and Jamesville-DeWitt’s Alex Martinez (17:47.4). Sam Glazier was 25th in the team race (27th overall) in 19:38.6, with no other Bears runner in the top 40 of the team event.
