Once the cross country schedule for 2014 came out, everyone pointed to what would take place last Wednesday afternoon at wind-swept Long Branch Park.
Liverpool, winners of the state Federation championship a year ago, would take a shot at Fayetteville-Manlius, who had claimed the New York State Public High School Athletic Association title right before the Warriors’ triumph at Bowdoin Park.
With both teams returning most of its top runners, the Hornets and Warriors drew the top two spots in the state Class A rankings, plus some top-10 national consideration.
But once they started running, it was clear that F-M remained the one to catch, snaring four of the top five finishing spots and breaking some records along the way as it beat Liverpool 19-37, though the Warriors did salvage a split, easily defeating B’ville 15-45.
Back from claiming the individual state title last November in Queensbury, F-M’s Bryce Millar went right to work again, tearing through the Long Branch course in 15 minutes, 12.1 seconds, which smashed the course record of 15:37 set by Tully’s Dominick Luca 12 years ago.
Millar’s teammate, Peter Ryan, also broke Luca’s course record, finishing in 15:14.3, just 2.2 seconds behind Millar, and beating out Liverpool’s Ben Petrella, who got third place in 15:32.4, the best time any Warriors runner has recorded at Long Branch.
Before any of the Warriors’ other stars could finish, though, F-M locked up the race by having Adam Hunt get third place in 15:39.1 and Kyle Barber take fifth place in 15:44 flat.
Riley Hughes closed out the scoring for the Hornets, earning seventh place in 16:00.3 between the Warriors’ Connor Buck in sixth (15:54) and ahead of Dan Muldoon (16:14) and Dylan McCarthy (16:27). Patrick Perry got 10th place in 16:43.3.
This was a rare instance where F-M’s long-dominant girls cross country team took second billing, but the Hornets had little trouble rolling past Liverpool 15-50, though again the Warriors turned around and defeated Baldwinsville 27-30, this despite having no one finish among the top 10 individuals. Annika Avery, in a winning time of 18:30 flat, led an F-M sweep of the top six spots.
