Off its sweep of Baldwinsville, the Cicero-North Syracuse cross country teams went to Saturday’s 68th annual E.J. Hermmann Invitational at Proctor Park in Utica, where it was one of the top entries in the field.
Sure enough, the boys Northstars won in Race 3 with 33 points, easily outdistancing Colonie (60 points) and the rest of the 11-team field.
And once again Chris Buchanan proved the fastest runner of the day, the senior covering the Proctor Park course in 16 minutes, 31.4 seconds, beating runner-up Niskayuna’s Marshall Pagano by 13.7 seconds.
In support, Ken Ryan took sixth place in 17:36.1, with Anthony Lupia right behind in seventh place (17:40.7) and Eric Hart landing in eighth place in 17:41.6. Neill Gill, in 11th place (18:08.2), beat Jared Walther to the wire by 1.1 seconds as Alex Bottorff (18:22.8) and Tom McAndrew (18:43.8) also cracked the top 25.
As for the CNS girls team, it nearly won, too, finishing with 56 points in Race 3 at Utica, second only to Holy Names, who won with 48 points.
Nicole Watterud also had to settle for second place, her time of 19:32.3 trailing Holy Names standout Catherine Maloy (19:11.2), who posted the best time of the entire Herrmann meet.
Jacqlynn Halstead was eighth, in 20:48 flat, while Katie Laris worked her way to 12th place in 21:24.8. Jessica Jelfo continued to improve as she finished 17th (21:47.5), with Mackenzie Cummings 20th (21:53.7), Marissa Colburn 21st (21:55.2) and Jamie Leone 26th in 22:46.1.
In what promises to be an exciting meet on Wednesday at Oneida Shores, CNS faces West Genesee, whom it already has dueled with twice in September meets at Jamesville Beach and VVS.
