A familiar and comforting sight greeted West Genesee cross country fans in Wednesday’s season-opening meet against Oswego at Camillus Middle School.
At the front of the pack in the girls race, Laura Leff won again, the junior fully healed from the stress fracture in her foot that sidelined her late in the indoor track season and through the entire outdoor campaign in the spring, too.
Leff finished in 20 minutes, 39.5 seconds, helping to push WG to a 15-48 victory over the Buccaneers and leading a Wildcat sweep of the top five positions.
Lindsay Weaver, in a time of 21:16.1, finished second, with Sara Ferranti claiming third place in 22:32.1. Eva Young rose to fourth place (22:45.1) as Alycia Andolina finished fifth in 23:08.6.
Behind them, Elise Dunshee had a clocking of 23:16.3 to put herself in seventh place, with Lauren Brieant eighth in 23:34.4. Annie Baker (23:42.9) and Bridget Spiddle (23:46.9) were ninth and 10th, respectively.
In the boys meet, where WG beat Oswego 15-50, the hosts swept all the top spots. It was close at the front, where Ethan Osborne, in a time of 18:39.9, held off Kal Strickland (18:40.3), Nate Conroy (18:40.7) and Jack Erhard, who was fourth in 18:41 flat. Mike Lannon was fifth in 18:41.4.
Amid the next pack of Wildcat runners, Nick Garty gained sixth place in 18:57.3. Alex Cuttler was seventh (19:03.4), followed by Connor Smith in eighth (19:11.9), with Will Johnson in ninth place (19:34.2) and Matt Romano 10th in 19:57.3.
