Thousands of cross country runners from across the Northeast, including four local teams, gathered at Rochester’s Genesee Valley Park amid glorious, sunny early-fall weather for last Saturday’s 49th annual McQuaid Invitational.
West Genesee ran in the featured AAA divisions. The girls Wildcats finished 12th out of 18 teams as seven-time defending champion Fayetteville-Manlius had a rare defeat, taking second place behind Unionville (Pa.), who won with 45 points to the Hornets’ 78.
Individually, Laura Leff finished 11th out of 143 runners with a time of 17 minutes, 32.3 seconds. Lindsay Weaver was 51st, nearly two minutes behind Leff in 19:25.6. Sarah Ferranti (19:52.3) was just in front of Elise Dunshee (19:55.7) and Maria Matkowski (20:08.4), with Alicia Sakran (20:53.1) and Maggie Guinto (21:16.2) also in the race.
Though none of WG’s boys runners fared as well as Laura Leff, the team did finish seventh out of 18 sides with 233 points as F-M (62 points) edged Liverpool (66 points) for the top spot.
Freshman David Leff had a time of 15:39.2 that put him in 20th place, well clear of Nate Conroy in 41st place (16:10.1), while Jack Erhard (16:18.5) and Will Randall (16:19:2) finished close together in 54th and 56th, respectively. Mike Lannon (16:25.8) rounded out the scoring column as Sean Beney (16:48.6) and Matt Romano (16:56.3) also broke the 17-minute mark.
Westhill/Bishop Ludden rose to fifth out of 17 teams in the AA girls race with 172 points as Burnt Hills (76 points) went to the top.
Genny Corcoran finished 20th in 19:06.6, with Erin Morrell 21st in 19:06.9. Emily Washburn (19:47.1), Mary Washburn (19:50.3) and Annibel Coolican (19:59.6) also had top-50 efforts, with Caroline Coates (20:21.2) and Erin Christensen (20:39.1) close behind.
As for the Westhill/Ludden boys, it could only get to 11th place in its 19-team AA race. Liam Rodgers, like Corcoran, had a 20th-place effort with his time of 16:01 flat, with Dan DeMauro 47th (16:30.3) and Josh Owens (16:30.6) in 48th place. Further behind were Kyle Fitch (16:51.7), Garrett Remillard (16:56.7), Vincenzo Carr (17:15.8) and Brian Celeste (17:28.2).
Marcellus and Jordan-Elbridge were together in the A race, where the Mustangs’ Rachel Garn finished sixth among individuals in a time of 18:13.4 and Abby Gugel led the Eagles, rolling to 17th place in 18:45 flat.
From a team standpoint, the Marcellus girls were 12th and J-E 17th. The Mustangs’ Eliza Bell, in a time of 20:19.3, was 63rd, ahead of Dominique Weeks (20:46.8), Emily Townsend (21:05.9), Schuyler Stuart (21:10.6), Tori Stopen (21:43.9) and Brianna Szczech (22:34.8).
For the Eagles, Mary Elizabeth Dristle got to 75th place in 20:48.1, while Miranda Malvaso (20:49.2), Marissa Malvaso (21:11.7), Alexis Malvaso (22:25.5), Emily Kuehnle (22:28.1) and Lauren Hubbs (23:08.1) followed.
They both did better in the boys race, with J-E’s total of 225 points enough to get in front of Marcellus (253 points), who settled for 10th place among the 24 teams.
Jack Gugel again led the Eagles, finishing 19th in 16:24.6. Nate Hollis (33rd, 16:52.7) and Nick Parkolap (46th, 17:07.7) also had solid showings, with Dylan Whittico (17:31.1) and Jacob Patterson (17:39.3) close together, in front of Austin Milton (17:46.9) and David Mixler (18:57.0).
By four spots, the Mustangs’ Patrick McGuane beat Gugel, taking 15th place in 16:14.5, while Alex Stopen was 37th in 16:58.1. Alex Zamojski (17:32.6) led the next path of Mustangs, in front of Steve Larison (17:46.0), Matt Strempel (17:49.1) and Kevin Pierce (17:51.1).
