In one of the fall’s largest gatherings, the Baldwinsville cross country team joined more than 70 other squads at Saturday’s Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Invitational.

This gave the Bees, and everyone else in the field, a sneak preview of the 3.1-mile course that will, on Nov. 12, host the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet.

And when all the races were done, B’ville had finished 11th among 123 entries with 520 points, behind only Fayetteville-Manlius, who took the top spot with 91 points. On the girls side, the Bees were 35th in a field of 116 with 1,140 points.

B’ville’s boys ran in Varsity Race 4, finishing fourth out of 13 with 85 points. Pittsford Mendon won with 47 points, with Franklin Academy (69 points) second and Brewster edging the Bees by one point for third place.

Alec Peinkofer ran to second place in 16:23.9, again beaten only by Marcellus’ Ryan Manahan (16:11.2), just as in the East Syracuse-Minoa Invitational seven days earlier.

Andy Fleming worked his way to ninth place, in 17:02.5. Josh Perez got 14th place in 17:18.1, while Matt Pond was 21st (17:51.9) and Jack Martin, in 42nd place in 18:37.9, rounded out the scoring. Nate Wicks took 51st place. Martin was called up from the junior varsity after he helped the Bees to a boys/girls sweep of the team honors at the ESM event.

Though Annie Peterson missed the meet, the girls Bees still were sixth in the Varsity 4 division with 153 points as Holy Names (50 points) rose to the top spot.

Freshman Rachael Miller led B’ville’s push, streaking her way to 19th place in a time of 21:32.3. Julia Johnson was 35th, in 22:17.1, just ahead of Amanda McMahon (22:18.2) in 36th. Emily Thompson was 39th in 22:34.6 and Hannah Olds (22:37.0) was 40th.

B’ville, who swept the varsity and JV titles at the ESM meet, opened CNY Counties League action last Wednesday with a sweep of Syracuse East – 15-50 on the girls side, 17-42 on the boys side.

Miller won the girls race in 20:41, beating Peterson (20:51) by 10 seconds. Kim Cushman was third, in 20:56, and McMahon (21:01) took fourth. Johnson (21:08) grabbed fifth place as Thompson (21:31), Olds (21:36), Maizy Ludden (21:43), Lauren Hughes (21:48) and Kirby Socker (22:00) completed a top-10 sweep.

This didn’t quite happen in the boys race, but Fleming, Perez and Peinkofer ran together, each of them crossing the line in 16:42. Pond had a time of 17:02, taking fifth place, while Pat Colligan was sixth in 17:20. Jeremiah Johnson (18:11) and Nate LoParco (18:12) also found the top 10.

Each of the B’ville teams hosts its own invitational meet on Saturday after a Wednesday encounter with Syracuse West.