Originally, the plan for the Baldwinsville cross country teams was to host powerhouse Fayetteville-Manlius last Wednesday afternoon in a grand season opener.
But a heat index that reached 100 degrees, plus the threat of thunderstorms, scuttled those plans. Instead, the Bees had to wait until Saturday’s Chittenango Invitational to get back to full competition mode.
On the same Jamesville Beach Park course that will host the Section III championship meet in early November, the B’ville girls side did quite well, claiming a tiebreaker with Ithaca for second place in Varsity Race 2 with 61 points, just behind Liverpool, who won with 32 points.
Rachael Miller led B’ville as she finished eighth in 20 minutes, 41.4 seconds, though that trailed each of Liverpool’s top three runners, plus Ithaca’s Lauren Trumble, who won the event in 19:21.1.
Marissa Lathrop worked her way to 10th place, in 20:53.5, with Mia Bolton grabbing 11th place in 21:18 flat. Hannah Olds was 19th (21:50.8), edging Kelley Hull (21:52.2) by 1.4 seconds as Hull settled for 20th place.
Emily McComb was 27th (22:32.6) as Natalie Farnett (23:14.3), Madison Gonzalez (23:37.6) and Kirby Socker (23:43.5) all finished within the top 50 in a field of more than 150 runners. Claire McMahon (23:54.9), Nadine Dickter (23:56.4) and Ali Gooley (24:10.9) also finished close together.
Meanwhile, in boys Varsity Race 2 at the Chittenango meet, B’ville had a total of 82 points, getting to third place, beating Liverpool (100 points), but trailing Rochester McQuaid (58 points) and Ithaca (69 points) in the 17-team field.
Individually, Jack Martin challenged for top honors, but settled for a fourth-place time of 16:56.3 as McQuaid’s Nick Ciolkowski prevailed in 16:10.5. Josh Perez, like Martin a senior, had a sixth-place run as he posted 17:07 flat.
Mike Boyce made his way to 20th place in 17:51.9, while Ryan Delola finished 24th in 17:57.4. Arden Kellner, in 28th place (18:06.5), also cracked the top 30, with Steve Petrelli 34th (18:18.5) and Paul Moore taking 39th place in 18:22.3. Cameron Morrissey (18:44.8), Denis Keegan (18:48.4) and Brett Delola (18:50.7) were just outside the top 50.
The next big meet for the Bees is its own Baldwinsville Invitational, the 62nd edition that starts at 9:15 a.m. at Durgee Junior High School. Before that, B’ville will race at Syracuse East on Wednesday afternoon – weather permitting, of course.
