Verona — Perhaps the Liverpool boys cross country team has earned bigger victories than the Section III Class A championship it earned Saturday at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School – but few of them were as satisfying as this one.
Led by individual sectional champion Ben Petrella, the Warriors ended the reign of its main nemesis, defending state champion Fayetteville-Manlius, by a four-point margin, 42-46.
More significantly, since only the sectional champion advances to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet, Liverpool doesn’t have to worry about beating F-M again when it runs next Saturday at Monroe-Woodbury.
Four different times this fall, the Warriors and Hornets had run against each other, but Liverpool had come out on top only once, as part of a larger field at the Oct. 10 Manhattan Invitational where neither side won.
Now they confronted each other on the tough VVS course, and amid the season’s biggest stakes, the Warriors proved up to the moment, especially the trio of Steve Schulz, Ryan Comstock and Terrell Coleman, who made sure that F-M didn’t catch them.
Petrella, as he has done all season, proved the top individual, pulling away from the pack and crossing the finish line in 15 minutes, 40.4 seconds, nearly half a minute ahead of F-M’s Peter Ryan, who was second in 16:10.1.
Though Ryan and Patrick Perry (16:14.6) took the second and third spots for the Hornets, Ty Brownlow closely followed them, and grabbed fourth place in 16:17.6 to pull the Warriors even.
Then Schulz made his way to sixth place in 16:19.8, well clear of F-M’s third runner, Joe Walters, who was seventh in 16:34.8. Having grabbed the lead, the Warriors extended it when Comstock grabbed eighth place in 16:37 flat.
And it was Coleman clinching the sectional title with his 13th-place finish in 17:05.4, something F-M could not overcome despite Bryan Geehrer finishing 10th (16:50.4) and Ben Otis (17:08.3) claiming 14th place. Dan Hunt gave the Warriors a 17th-place finish in 17:18.5.
continued — Behind this group, more Liverpool runners ran well. Gabe Albert, for example, claimed 21st place in 17:27.7 as Collin Gwilt finished 31st in 17:51.6. Julio Roman (17:54.3) and Cullen McLaughlin (18:00.6) were 33rd and 34th, respectively.
Cicero-North Syracuse finished fifth in the 11-team field with 124 points. Andrew Bearkland fared best among the Northstars’ individuals, taking 11th place in 16:57.4, two spots away from earning an individual berth in the state meet.
Also for C-NS, Nate Poirier finished 22nd, in 17:30.5, while Joe Tricarico landed in 24th place in 17:38.7. Brandon Martin was 44th (18:26.5), just ahead of Jason Hughes (18:27.1) and Zach Wagner (18:30.5), with John Perperian (18:40.5) in 50th place.
They also held the girls sectional Class A championship meet at VVS, where Liverpool finished third, with 87 points, just behind runner-up West Genesee (76 points) as F-M again dominated, with 16 points and eight of the top 10 individual finishers. C-NS was fifth with 122 points.
In the race for individual berths at the state meet, Liverpool’s Juliana Basla took 12th place in a time of 19:53.8, but was fourth among non-F-M runners. Thus, Basla joins West Genesee’s Carly Benson and Maria Matkoski, Baldwinsville’s Justus Holden-Betts and Rome Free Academy’s Marian Draper as state qualifiers.
Vanessa Eberhard, who finished 15th (20:11.0), and Morgan Chewning-Kulick, who finished 20th (20:39.6), helped the Warriors to that third-place team finish. Natalie Kurz took 23rd place in 21:01.8 as Jillian Stagnitta finished 25th in 21:12.6, ahead of Windsor Ardner (21:53.9), Mallory Woytowicz (22:04.4) and Sarah Sedlock (22:13.7).
C-NS saw Annina Marullo run to 17th place in 20:22.8, two spots ahead of teammate Emily Dembrowski (20:38.5) in 19th place. Sarah Davis was 26th in 21:13.9 as Julia Rupp got to 32nd place in 21:50.3. Megan Trubia (22:09.8) and Tori Pirro (22:38.1) also had top-50 finishes.
