Liverpool’s boys cross country team made a trip east to the Queensbury High School course where they will run the state championships on Nov. 9 – and earned an impressive victory.
During Saturday’s Queensbury Invitational, the Warriors actually tied with Saratoga Springs, the pair each getting 71 points to top a 21-team field.
But because Liverpool’s sixth runner placed far ahead of Saratoga’s, the Warriors prevailed. Dylan McCarthy was that sixth runner, his time of 16 minutes, 38.61 seconds beat Saratoga’s sixth runner, Taylor Fenoff (17:26.80), by more than 48 seconds.
Pearl River’s Brian Cook won the race in 15:17.95 as Liverpool’s top two runners, Connor Buck and Ben Petrella, stayed together, Buck earning ninth place in a time of 15:51.80 and Petrella, in 15:52.17, gaining 10th place.
Alex Christensen earned 13th-place points and was 14th overall in 16:06.83, with Dan Muldoon three spots behind as he ran to a time of 16:11.25. Nick LeClair also had a top-30 finish, needing 16:29.80 to claim 28th place, which was 25th on the points scale. Ryan Comstock (17:02.25) was right behind McCarthy.
Liverpool’s girls side was ninth out of 20 teams at Queensbury, led by Abby McNamara, who claimed 21st place in 19:17.88. Eighth-grader Maia Henry was 43rd, in 19:49.53, just ahead of Juliana Basla (19:50.07) in 44th place. Morgan Chewning-Kulick was 54th in 20:13.56 as Jillian Stagnitta (21:29.10), Kristina Moore (21:58.86) and Morgan Mahoney (22:24.15) were further back.
As this was going on, Cicero-North Syracuse was sweeping to the boys and girls titles at the much smaller New Hartford Invitational.
In the girls race, Jilliann Norris led C-NS to victory, claiming the individual race as her time of 20 minutes, 55 seconds beat New Hartford’s Alyssa Suits (21:00) by five seconds.
Nine of the top 20 finishers were from C-NS, including Madison Kolakowski, who was third in 21:05, and Taylor Parry, who was fifth in 21:12.
Savannah Stevens, in seventh place (21:19), and Madison Gross (21:25), in eighth place, rounded out the scoring column. Emily Dolan took 10th place in 21:55, with Lauren Carr (22:25) in 12th place. Freshmen Molly Camire (23:09) and Ashley Irvine (23:42) were 17th and 19th, respectively.
Shaking off a loss to Central Square three days earlier, the boys Northstars picked up 28 points, well clear of Whitesboro (61 points) and the rest of the field.
Colin Greenseich was second among individuals, his time of 16:47 trailing only Utica Proctor’s Zakaria Adam (16:06), while Adam Bearkland was third in 16:53 and Chris Hannan was fourth, in 17:08. Paul DeGennaro (17:35) and Eric Bowen (17:36) also sneaked into the top 10 as Joe Tricarico (17:54), Jared George (18:07) and Brian Traub (18:49) closely followed.
