It proved an interesting week for the Baldwinsville cross country teams, who learned plenty from facing up against the top teams in the state and then taking a turn on the course that will host the Section III championships later this fall.
The second of these events was Saturday’s Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Invitational, and it proved the much more pleasant experience, as the Bees won both the boys and girls races with its deep, versatile lineup.
B’ville competed in Race 2, away from Fayetteville-Manlius, who was in Race 1 and utterly dominated both the boys and girls divisions.
Glad to take on a more reasonable field, the Bees beat them, starting with the girls race, where with 37 points the Bees held off runner-up Tully (55 points) and seven other challengers, with South Jefferson (90 points) taking third place.
Marissa Lathrop led the charge, as her time of 20 minutes, 18.4 seconds led a pack of three Bees that chased Tully’s Ashleigh Crawford, who won in 19:43.5. Maizy Ludden finished third, in 20:32.3, while freshman Elizabeth Fawwaz got to fourth place in 20:42.5.
More B’ville runners followed, starting with Mia Bolton, who got to 16th place in 22:24.8, and Emily McComb, who was 18th in 22:34.8 to close out the scoring column. Claire McMahon finished 21st in 22:50.3, just beating out Natalie Farnett (22:57.3) in 22nd place, with Nadine Dickter (23:12.1) and Allison Gooley (23:49.8) also notching top-35 finishes.
Moving to boys Race 2 at VVS, it was the Bees triumphant again, and by a more lopsided margin, getting 51 points while Jamesville-DeWitt (114 points) and Marcellus (117 points) lingered far back in the next two spots.
And it was Arden Kellner setting the pace for B’ville, getting to fifth place among individuals in 17:23.2, not far from J-D’s Patrick Dye, who won in 16:51.9. Cameron Morrissey also got into the top 10, finishing eighth in 17:46.5.
Michael Boyce (17:50.9) and Austin Bolton (17:52.8) were 11th and 12th, respectively, while Ryan Delola finished 15th in 18:03.3. Denis Keegan, in 20th place (18:21.5), led a top-30 pack that included Colin Spaulding (18:28.7), Dan Conlan (18:28.9), Andrew Olds (18:33.5), Evan Vannatta and Joey Frink. Nearly half the top 40 finishers wore B’ville colors.
Before that, though, the Bees found itself at Long Branch Park last Wednesday as the third side bearing witness to the duel between F-M and Liverpool.
At least in the girls meet, B’ville had a chance to knock off Liverpool, and nearly did so before falling to the Warriors 27-30. F-M, winners of seven consecutive Nike Cross National meets before finishing second a year ago, beat the Bees 15-49.
Despite the expected dominance of the Hornets, Lathrop ran a terrific race, crossing the line in 19:48.6, behind a group of six F-M stars led by Annika Avery, who won in 18:30 flat. Ludden added a 10th-place time of 20:12.3.
Moving to the boys meet, B’ville was facing an F-M side that won the state Class A championship a year ago and a Liverpool side that claimed the Federation championship. The Bees lost, 15-45, to the Warriors and 15-50 to the Bees, not putting any runners in the top 10.
