VERONA – Though it wasn’t all that the Cicero-North Syracuse girls cross country team was after, the Northstars did bring home a victory from Saturday’s Section III Class A championships at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School.
That was thanks to senior Kate Putman, who with another impressive performance earned the individual sectional championship and posted the fastest time of a warm, windy day of sectional racing.
Squaring off with a Fayetteville-Manlius side it beat in two different meets earlier this season, the Northstars saw Putman slowly take over the race while chased by the Hornets’ Izzie Sullivan.
The North Carolina State-bound senior finished in 18 minutes, 46.9 seconds, which beat Sullivan’s 19:02.1 by more than 15 seconds and stamped Putman as a favorite for this week’s state championships on that same VVS course.
Meanwhile, sophomore Gabby Putman was quite impressive, too, her time of 19:37.3 good for fourth place and a spot alongside her older sister at the state meet.
From a team standpoint, C-NS 60 points, not enough to match F-M’s winning total of 35 gained by four of the top eight individual finishers.
Since anyone down to ninth place ended up in the state meet, senior Marissa Navarra just missed that cutoff, her 10th-place time of 20:14.1 about 10 seconds behind Auburn’s Mary Alice Pineau.
As to the rest of the Northstars, sophomore Katy Harbold finished 17th in 21:19.9, while eighth-grader Sophia Graham was 28th among team runners in 22:27 flat. Cameron Sisk, in 23:10.3, was two spots ahead of Allison Moran’s 23:17.4.
Then there was Liverpool, who made its way to third place on the team side with 95 points despite not having a top-10 individual finisher.
Meghan Moyer got close, though, as the Warriors senior was 11th in 20:25.8 to lead her side as sophomore Taylor Page ran to 13th place in 20:33.9.
Junior Addyson Graham gave Liverpool a 22nd-place finish in 21:51.2, with sophomore Kaitlyn Hotaling 23rd in 21:57.2 and sophomore Addison Ziegler 26th on the team side in 22:18 flat ahead of Kailyn Barth (22:37.1) and Charlotte Warner, who posted 23:03.3.
Two hours earlier, in the boys sectional Class A meet, Liverpool took fourth place with 85 points, trailing only Auburn, F-M and Baldwinsville in the 14-team field.
Each of the Warriors’ top five runners finished within the top 20, but none did better than junior Brady Ruediger, who took 13th place in a clocking of 17:57.3.
Sophomore Josh Vang was 15th in 18:10.2, with a trio of runners finishing together as junior Andrew Corrigan, in 18:22.5, beat out seniors Austin Ziegler (18:23.3) and Jacob Makhlouf (18:26.9) for 18th place. Davis Farrell (19:06.9) and Roman Murray (19:10.6) were further back.
C-NS took sixth place with 202 points led by freshman Tyler Graham, who was 33rd among team runners in 18:58.3 as Justin Asch, in 19:03 flat, was two spots behind.
Dominic Petrera finished in 19:25.0, beating out Northstars teammates Jordan Hnatiw (19:46.2), Evan Champ (19:54.5) and Liam Adams, who posted 20:01.8.
