In a pair of fierce contests, the Cicero-North Syracuse cross country teams emerged with a split of its battles with West Genesee during last Saturday’s Chittenango Invitational.
They contested this meet on the same Jamesville Beach State Park course where the Section III championships will be held Oct. 31.
The Northstars got placed in Division I, alongside the Wildcats, while Fayetteville-Manlius beat Baldwinsville fo both Division II titles and Liverpool dominated a Division III field full of smaller schools.
CNS would take the Division I girls title, earning 34 points to West Genesee’s total of 61 points as Cazenovia (129 points) was far back in third place.
Taylor Wendler made it two wins in as many weeks, the junior backing up her Central Square Invitational title by covering the 3.1-mile Jamesville Beach course in 19 minutes, 22.65 seconds, well clear of CBA eighth-grader Katie Brislin (19:48.42) in second place.
Senior Lindsay Raulli finished third, in a clocking of 20:03.83. Sophomore Nicole Campagna worked her way to sixth place, in 20:40.22, while freshman Dana Rinaldi earned 11th place in 21:23.64.
Junior Christina Sakowski, in 13th place (21:33.00), rounded out the scoring, but had plenty of followers. Katie Laris was 17th (21:50.17), while Cate Jones was 26th (22:09.63), Taryn Cullen 28th (22:19.57) and Schuyler Cary 29th in 22:24.25.
In a close battle for the Division I boys crown, CNS had 38 points, nudged out at the wire by West Genesee’s winning total of 36 points. Non one else was close.
Individually, sophomore Chris Buchanan chased WG’s Steve Houghmaster to the line, finishing second in 16:17.64 as Houghmaster (16:10.92) won.
Alex Bottorff earned fifth place, in 17:04.95, while Eric Hart got seventh place in 17:12.78. As Matt Perkins got 10th place (17:25.73), though, WG got its fourth and fifth runners past the line, thus finishing in front of the team standings.
Still, CNS had plenty of high finishers, including Nick Dunbar in 14th place (17:46.53), Mike Kavanagh in 17th place (18:03.39) and Jared Walther 18th, in 18:07.14.
The Northstars begin its CNY Counties League national division work Wednesday, against Henninger at Oneida Shores.
