In a loud and exciting start to its 2010 league schedule, the Cicero-North Syracuse cross country teams would clash with Fayetteville-Manlius, the defending state Class AA champions on both the male and female sides. Here the Northstars ran well – and still couldn’t match the Hornets, who prevailed 15-49 in the girls race and 20-41 in the boys race. Chris Buchanan beat all of the boys Hornets’ runners, blazing through the course in 15 minutes, 31 seconds, nearly half a minute ahead of Owen Strong. Yet the Hornets claimed every spot from second through seventh before Eric Hart took eighth place in 16:10, just one second ahead of Ken Ryan in ninth. It proved more futile to stop the F-M tide in the girls race.
Nicole Watterud tried, and had a strong time of 18:11, but that was still trailing six Hornet runners, led by Heather Martin’s winning time of 17:43, and no other CNS runner reached the top 10. In stark contrast, the Liverpool Warriors opened its CNY Counties League schedule at Longbranch Park with a one-sided win over Utica Proctor, both of them 15-50 decisions. In the boys race, Brandon Rudd won individual honors in 17:30, five seconds ahead of Drew Henry, while Zach Crosby (17:42) edged out Ostuni by a second for third place. Casey Guilfoil, in 18:01, completed the top five sweep, closely followed by Kevin Abel (18:08), Anthony Romano (18:21), Travis Kulick-Chewning, Adam Zinger (18:42 each) and Andrew Lewis (18:55). Much the same thing happened in the girls race, where Rachel Putman won in 19:51, the only girl to break the 20-minute mark. Ashley Letteney was second, in 20:22, half a minute behind, while Ali Whiting got third place (22:34), Morgan Mahoney fourth (22:38) and Jessica Turner in fifth place (22:59). Catherine Vann, with a sixth-place time of 23:02, just missed out on the top five, as Leah Dixon found her way to seventh place (24:05), Kaylah Quilty was eighth (24:15) and Laura Donley finished 10th in 24:21.