Something new is facing the Fayetteville-Manlius girls cross country team this fall – namely, a sense that championships on a local, state and national scale may not happen at the level it has for the last decade-plus.
The Hornets’ astonishing run of 11 national championships in 12 years could continue, but only if major improvement takes place over the course of the 2018 season.
Sophia Ryan, Becca Walters and Palmer Madsen graduated from 2017, and the returning group has plenty to prove, especially after it finished second to Shenendehowa in Saturday’s season-opening Chittenango Invitational.
On the same course where they’ll run the Section III championships in early November, F-M had 60 points in Varsity Race 1, but Shenendehowa prevailed with 43 points as it had seven of the top 21 individual finishers.
Despite this, F-M’s Claire Walters posted the lowest time in any of the three races, winning in 17 minutes, 50.7 seconds, while Grace Kaercher got fourth place in 19:01 flat.
Eighth-grader Hannah Kaercher was eighth in 19:51.5, but six Shen runners finished ahead of Phoebe White (20:20.9) in 20th place. Chloe Bullough (20:39.6) beat out Lejla Borcilo (20:40.5) for 27th place as Emily Cook was 33rd in 21:01.9.
In this same race, Jamesville-DeWitt finished ninth out of 17 teams. Sophia Vinciguerra was 34th in 21:08.4, with Madeline Foss (21:55.5) and Abby Palin (22:10.9) 42nd and 43, respectively. Amanda Semmel (23:16.2), Miriam Zoghby (23:16.7), Lily Dougherty (23:20.6) and Stella Heflin (23:25.6) finished close together.
Contrast this with what the F-M boys team did in its Varsity Race 1 at Chittenango, the Hornets not only winning its division (18 points to runner-up Beaver River’s 62), but finishing tops among all teams in all three aces.
Ten of the top 16 individuals came from the Hornets’ roster, including five of the day’s top seven individual times. Leading them all, Garrett Brennan, in 15 minutes, 53.2 seconds, edged Geoff Howles (15:54.4) by 1.2 seconds.
Peyton Geehrer made it to fourth place in 16:24.3, with Matt Tripp fifth in 16:27.9 and Sam Otis seventh in 16:33.1. Nolan Chiles (17:05.2) and Eli Capri (17:14.9) were ahead of Yakob Kelley (17:16.9), Max Perry (17:26.3) and Jack Altimonda (17:28.9).
J-D was third with 92 points, with Nick Mannion at the forefront as he got to 11th place in a clocking of 17:14.3, while Kaleel Boykins was 14th in 17:30 flat.
Luke Hobika finished 16th with a time of 17:46 flat, with Nate Rindfuss (18:14.4) just ahead of Collin Rivercomb (18:14.7) in 25th place, the two of them just in front of Michael Sizing (18:21.1) and Ahviere Reese (18:23.8).
East Syracuse Minoa competed in Varsity Race 2, where on the boys side the Spartans’ Nick Berg had a terrific race, moving all the way to fifth place in 16 minutes, 56 seconds.
Michael Sanders got 38th place in the team standings in 18:46.4, while Marcus Evans (19:03.8) was two spots ahead of Spencer Carnival (19:12.7) and Tyler Nice (20:50.5) led the next pack.
Meanwhile, the ESM girls finished 11th as Emma Biel, pacing the Spartans, got 25th place in the team standings in 22:17.8. Mary Roach was 35th in 22:43.7, ahead of Elena Vespi (24:03.7), Taylor Hoffman (24:48.4) and Marissa Drogo (25:19.5).