Right in its own backyard, the Jamesville-DeWitt boys cross country team fought its way to the Section III Class A championship over OHSL Freedom division rival East Syracuse-Minoa last Friday afternoon at Jamesville Beach.
Despite Nick Sadlocha’s individual title for the Spartans, the Red Rams still proved to be better overall, with 37 points to ESM’s 62. Watertown finished third with 89 points.
On an individual basis, no one would catch Sadlocha, as the Spartan senior took the lead by the midway point of the race and held it all the way to the end, winning in 16 minutes, 15.4 seconds.
Then J-D began the response with its pair of anchors, Dan Frank and Bumkuth Jiak, as Frank earned second place in 16:27 flat and Jiak, with a time of 16 minutes, 48.2 seconds, finished third.
For the Red Rams, what proved just as important was the fact that Max Smith and Ben Kier also found the top 10, as Smith finished eighth (17:34.5) and Kier took 10th place in 17:58.0.
John Lenish, who finished 14th (18:16.7), rounded out J-D’ s scoring, but Eamon Kissane (18:19.2) was close behind in 16th place as Tyler Petersen finished 22nd (18:30.8) and Drew Ladew finished 30th, in 18:43.0.
ESM could not match that depth, but still had Matt Lyons finish seventh in 17:29.7 as he clinched the fifth and final individual berth on the Section III All-Stars. Thus, Lyons will join Sadlocha, Nick Lynch (Watertown), Evan Oustrich (Mexico) and Noah Carroll (Fulton) in advancing to this Saturday’s state championships at Sunken Meadow State Park on Long Island.
Also for the Spartans, Craig Andrianos finished 13th, in 18:15.6, while Andrew Troast was 17th (18:21.2) and Nate LaPierre finished 24th in 18:34.0.
Earlier in the day, J-D’s girls made a great bid for the Class A team title, but settled for second place with 67 points, just ahead of Mexico (68 points), as Whitesboro prevailed with 49 points. ESM was fourth with 114 points.
Eileen Cody would finish sixth for the Red Rams in a time of 20:40.3, but since she finished fifth among Class A individuals outside of Whitesboro, she advanced to the state meet, just ahead of ESM’s Meghan Visser, who was seventh in 21:10.5.
Elsewhere for J-D, Ameena Dye finished eighth, in 21:24.9, while Grace Bradshaw claimed 10th place in 21:49.5. Avery Share (23:45.3) and Amber Blom (23:49.3) were 23rd and 24th, respectively.
Among ESM runners outside of Visser, Marissa Kite fared best, earning 20th place in 23:36.3, as teammates Megan Crandall (28th, 24:12.5) and Elizabeth Van Dusen (32nd, 24:28.9) followed her to the line. Megan Steinberg, Kara Button and Emily Stewart all finished in the top 40, too.
Long before this, CBA eighth-grader Katie Brislin had an impressive showing as she led CBA to a second-place finish in Class C with 97 points, a number only Tully (47 points) could better.
Brislin stayed near the lead throughout the race, and though Pulaski’s Katie Weisenberger would pull away to win in 19:16.0, Brislin followed her and finished second in 19:28.1, clinching a berth in the state meet.
Carol Giblin gave the Brothers an 11th-place time of 20:45.9, while Taylor Poplawski got 19th place in 21:07.6. Corey Hucko (32nd, 21:48.7) and Rachel Zajdel (37th, 22:06.6) also ran well.
