Even as it took a defeat to West Genesee on Oct. 2, the Liverpool boys cross country team knew that the real priority was, first, to lock up the CNY Counties League National division regular-season championship.
And that task was met in Wednesday’s meet against short-handed Baldwinsville at Durgee Junior High School, where the state Class A no. 3-ranked Warriors had little trouble prevailing over the Bees 19-44.
Ever since a late-September hazing investigation led to several suspensions, B’ville has run short-handed, with Jack Martin its lone standout. In fact, Martin would push for the individual title in this race, only to finish second (15:41) to Ben Petrella, who won in 15 minutes, 38 seconds.
Then the rest of the Warriors arrived, starting with Dylan McCarthy, who was third in 16:09. Alex Christensen (16:12), Connor Buck, Nick LeClair, Dan Muldoon (16:13 each) and Ryan Comstock (16:14) finished together, all of them plus Sean Brais (16:32) ahead of the Bees’ second runner, Steve Petrelli, who finished in 16:39.
When it was the Liverpool girls turn against Baldwinsville (who wasn’t short-handed at all), the result was close to the same as the Warriors, by a 20-38 margin, also clinched a regular-season CNYCL National title.
Abby McNamara got away from the pack, finishing in 18 minutes 15 seconds, while Morgan Mahoney gained second place in 18:29. In between B’ville teammates Marissa Lathrop (18:40) and Rachael Miller (19:00), Juliana Basla made her way to fourth place in 18:50.
Three other runners would put away the victory, though. Morgan Chewning-Kulick earned sixth place, in 19:26, with Jillian Stagnitta in seventh place (19:35) and Kristina Moore earning eighth place in 19:57.
As Liverpool was earning its league titles, Cicero-North Syracuse was also winning big, rolling past Syracuse East at Oneida Shores in a pair of one-sided races that served as warm-ups for the Manhattan Invitational.
In the boys 15-48 decision, Paul DeGennaro, Colin Greenseich (whose personal-best time at Oneida Shores keyed a win over B’ville the week before) and Chris Hannan all posted times of 17:53, with Andrew Bearkland and Eric Bowen finishing in 17:54.
Joe Tricarico, in 18:01, finished seventh and led the next group as Brian Traub got eighth place in 1815 and Evan Tracy (19:01) was 10th.
C-NS won the girls meet 15-50 as Lauren Carr, who won the race in 22:09, led a tight-knit group where she, along with Madison Kolakowski, Sarah Shannon, Jacqlynn Halstead, Amanda Shuman, Emily Dolan, Taylor Parry, Jilliann Norris and Madison Gross finished seven seconds apart.
