Two weeks removed from a rare defeat in a large-scale, high-profile meet, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls cross country team found itself back in its usual first-place spot.
The Hornets would roar to victory in both the girls and boys Eastern State Championships, the featured attraction of last Saturday’s massive Manhattan Invitational at VanCortlandt Park in the Bronx.
Here, F-M’s girls didn’t have to worry about state Class A no. 1-ranked Elmira, who had toppled the Hornets in the Sept. 27 McQuaid Invitational in Rochester. Elmira chose instead to race (and win) at the Bob Greene Invitational at Newark Valley.
Free from having to deal with the Express, the Hornets, led by Annika Avery, accumulated 48 points to beat the 11 other teams in the Eastern States field, with LaSalle Academy landing in second place, earning 81 points.
Going over a 4,000-meter VanCortlandt Park course (1,000 meters shorter than an average high school cross country setup), Avery posted a time of 14 minutes, 24.7 seconds, beating everyone except Heritage’s Weini Ketali, who won in 14:20.6. Only Ketali and Corning’s Jessica Lawson (14:18.8 in the Varsity C division) ran faster than Avery in the seven varsity races.
Olivia Ryan made her way to ninth place, in 14:44.7, just ahead of Samantha Levy, who was 10th in 14:45.7, and Jenna Farrell, who got 11th place in 14:52.2.
F-M freshman Sophie Ryan closed out the scoring column, getting to 16th place in 15:07.4, with Reilly Madsen taking 33rd place in 15:38.3, one spot ahead of Jessica Howe’s 15:39.1.
The boys Eastern States race turned into yet another F-M battle with Liverpool, and the state Class A no. 1-ranked Hornets, earning 80 points, cleared past the runner-up Warriors (122 points) and the rest of the field.
Going for the individual title, Bryce Millar tore through the VanCortlandt Park course in 12 minutes, 2.3 seconds, but had to settle for second place behind Darien’s Alex Ostberg, who beat the field with 11:57.2, the day’s fastest effort.
Kyle Barber was impressive, too, getting to sixth place in 12:23.8, while Adam Hunt crossed the line in 18th place in 12:38.3, edging out Peter Ryan (12:39.4), who was 19th. By contrast, Liverpool had just one top-20 finishers – Ben Petrella (12:25.7), in seventh place.
Riley Hughes needed exactly 13 minutes to get to 35th place and close out the scoring, with Patrick Perry getting to 69th place in 13:24.1 and Jon Abbott (13:28.5) in 82nd place.
Each of the F-M sides warmed up for the Manhattan meet in last Tuesday’s three-way CNY Counties League match against Auburn and Syracuse East, each of them easy wins for the Hornets. The girls beat both sides by 15-50 margins, with the boys also beating East 15-50.
