In a few eventual days, the West Genesee cross country teams would have multiple encounters with Fayetteville-Manlius, arguably the nation’s strongest program.
Part of this was the Wildcats’ head-to-head meet against the Hornets Wednesday afternoon in Camillus. Here, Laura Leff had a shining moment, which helped to mitigate the 20-43 (girls) and 18-41 (boys) defeats WG had to take.
With a time of 17 minutes, 50.2 seconds, Leff broke the Camillus Middle School course record, but she was the only Wildcat runner in the top 10 as the Hornets’ overwhelming depth (even with top runners sitting out) was on display.
The boys meet also saw WG go up against an opponent atop the state Class A rankings. Martin Leff still contended for individual honors, his time of 16:46.5 trailing only F-M teammates Colin Fitzgibbons (16:23.9) and Conor Farrell (16:35.6).
F-M clinched matters by claiming the next four finishing spots, but Mike Lannon still gained eighth place in 17:31.8, while Mark Reilly was ninth in 17:37 flat and Ethan Osborne (17:49.2) got 10th place.
WG’s girls had seen F-M in action just three days before, during the annual Manhattan Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, where the Wildcats were part of the featured event, the Eastern States race.
Leff would beat most of the field, taking 10th place as she covered the 2.5-mile Van Cortlandt course in 14 minutes, 57.5 seconds as F-M’s Jillian Fanning won in 14:03.8.
Lindsay Weaver was 48th, in 16:42.7, while Abby Kastick was 70th in 17:23 flat. Kelly Powell took 74th place (17:28.3), just ahead of Mary McGlynn (17:29.8) and Amy Hannahan (18:00.2), with Alycia Andolina (18:56.2) rounding out the field.
WG’s boys were in the Varsity A race, where Martin Leff exactly matched Laura Leff’s finishing spot with a 10th-place clocking of 13:26.76.
Osborne was 46th (14:11.56), with Jack Erhard (14:39.69), Luke Potash (14:41.14), Tim Sprague (14:44.25), Nate Conroy (14:48.27) and Reilly (14:55.52) all finishing close to each other.
