This year marked the 63rd time that cross country runners made it to Baldwinsville for its annual late-September meet, which featured 44 boys and 34 girls sides.
Part of the smaller Large Schools division in last Saturday’s gathering, the Bees, with 90 points, got to third place on the boys side, trailing only Ithaca, who won with 32 points, and Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, who was second with 51 points.
Michael Boyce did post a top-10 finish, earning ninth place in 16 minutes, 11.3 seconds, not far from the winning 15:05.7 posted by Ithaca’s Dan Dracup.
Behind Boyce, Arden Kellner made his way to 16th place in 16:35.5, while Austin Bolton took 19th place in 16:43.4 and Ryan Delola was 20th in 16:48.7. Collin Spaulding (17:06.9) edged out Cameron Morrissey (17:07.2) for the last scoring spot in 26th place, with Denis Keegan posting 17:20.6.
In the girls Large School race, despite a solid effort from the trio of Marissa Lathrop, Maizy Ludden and Elizabeth Fawwaz, B’ville, with 79 points, still finished third, with Ithaca (55 points) completing a team sweep and Shaker (61 points) and Clarence) close behind.
Lathrop finished seventh, in 18:50.7, with Shaker’s Maryanna Lansing (18:08.6) on top, while Ludden got ninth place in 19:18.7 and Fawwaz was 12th in 19:39.7. Emily McComb, in 20:44.1, made her way to 23rd place, while Mia Bolton had a 28th-place time of 20:59 flat, ahead of Claire McMahon (21:42.6) and Kelsey Hull (21:57.3) at the line.
B’ville did win the boys JV race at its invitational meet, led by Dan Conlan (17:17.4, third place), Ethan Craig (fourth), Andrew Olds (fifth) and Evan Vannatta (sixth). The girls Bees finished second on its JV side, with Natalie Farnett, in 21:58.5, posting the best time.
And in the Small School divisions, it was Chittenango, on the boys side, and Skaneateles, on the girls side, earning the team titles, with Mexico’s Jake Zedack taking the boys race in 15:32.4 and the Lakers’ Kaitlyn Neal, in 17:52.3, getting the fastest girls time of the entire day.
Before the invitational, B’ville competed in three-way meets last Wednesday against Auburn and Central Square, and swept them both.
The girls Bees, who were no. 14 in the first state Class A rankings of the season, rolled past the host Red Hawks 16-45 and Auburn 15-45, with Lathrop leading the way, her time of 19:22 just four seconds ahead of Ludden (19:36) at the line.
Fawwaz, in third place (19:39), and Bolton, in fourth place (20:18), completed a top-four sweep before Central Square’s Mikayla Baker (20:21) got into fifth place. McComb was sixth, in 20:40, while McMahon (21:19) took 10th place.
It wasn’t easy for B’ville’s boys teams, but it managed to beat Central Square 25-36 and Auburn 24-37, even though the Red Hawks’ Sean Kuehn (16:03) and Chad Dunham (16:04) swept the top-two spots and the Maroons’ Jordan Middleton (16:20) finished third.
Kellner made it to fourth place, in 16:30, and in a closely contested race (the top 10 were separated by less than a minute) B’ville’s depth would make the difference. Austin Bolton finished sixth, in 16:36, just ahead of DeLola (16:46), while Spaulding and Morrissey both crossed the line in 16:54 and Denis Keegan was 10th in 17 minutes flat.
