A quirk in the schedule had the Fayetteville-Manlius cross country teams venturing to the same Baldwinsville course twice in a span of five days.
Having already won a tough head-to-head meet with B’ville, the Hornets now faced off with a whole group of foes in the Large School division at last Saturday’s 64th annual Baldwinsville Invitational – but it managed to sweep the boys and girls team and individual titles.
Challenged in the boys division by Ithaca, F-M, with 51 points, still went to the front, with the Little Red getting second place by earning 67 points. Burnt Hills (87 points) edged out host B’ville (89 points) for third place as East Syracuse Minoa was 11th and Jamesville-DeWitt took 12th place.
The Hornets’ Peter Ryan emerged as individual boys champion, going 1-2 with Patrick Perry as, on a course made extremely fast by dry conditions, Ryan finished in 14 minutes, 50.9 seconds, while Perry took second place in 14:57.1.
Joe Walters made it to eighth place in 15:21.1 amidst a group of Ithaca runners, but once Ben Otis finished 12th in 15:43.1, the Hornets had an insurmountable lead as Jack Boltman finished 28th in 16:25.7 and Max Perry (16:30.9) got 33rd place.
ESM, for its part, had Matt Young rise to 11th place in 15:42.1, with Jared Henry 35th in 16:33.2. Nick Berg was 51st (16:48.1) as, for J-D, Matt Salbert fared best, getting to 62nd place in 17:19.7, with Tyler Glowaki (17:44.5), James Pieri (17:46.6) and Miles Chandler (17:49.6) close behind.
F-M’s girls, featuring Kailtyn Neal at the forefront, had seven of the top 12 finishers and earned 21 points to finish far clear of second-place Ithaca (103 points), while J-D was seventh with 163 points and ESM took 10th place.
No one could keep up with Neal, who in 16 minutes, 48.6 seconds crossed the line nearly half a minute ahead of West Genesee’s Carly Benson, who was second in 17:14.3.
Then the rest of the Hornets swarmed to the finish line, led by Palmer Madsen, who in 17:23.1 held off Samantha Levy (17:24.3) for third place. Jenna Farrell was sixth, in 17:33.8, while Rebecca Walters was seventh in 17:38 flat and Claire Walters was eighth in 17:39.9 and Sophia Ryan, in 18:06.8, gained 12th place.
Among the J-D and ESM runners, the Red Rams’ Samantha Butler, in 17:45.6, made it to 10th place, while the Spartans’ Natalie Marra was 11th in 17:56.8.
Helping Butler for J-D, Megan Brown was 23rd, in 19:21 flat, while Alexandra Street was 32nd in 19:49.7 and Amelia Gilbert was 40th in 20:10.6 and Alisa Salbert (21:26.0) finished 69th. Far back of Marra, ESM’s Megan Vandewarker was 66th in 21:23.6, beating out Sarah Tingley (21:32.7), Marina Lopez (22:47.3) and Mary Neff (23:46.0).
