All throughout this autumn, West Genesee girls cross country runner Carly Benson had proven herself the legitimate heir to Laura Leff among great Wildcats runners, emerging as one of the nation’s top ninth-graders.
Full confirmation of this status arrived Saturday in the Section III Class A championships at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, where Benson not only outclassed all of the runners from state no. 1-ranked Fayetteville-Manlius, but also posted the fastest time of the entire sectional meet.
On a cold, gray November morning, Benson set off and didn’t take long to separate herself from the F-M pack, who mostly focused on securing yet another sectional team title.
Still, Benson kept pulling away, and ended up covering the VVS course in 18 minutes, 28.5 seconds, more than 21 seconds ahead of F-M’s Samantha Levy, who was second in 18:50.2.
From a team standpoint, the state Class A no. 15-ranked Wildcats proved better than no. 14-ranked Liverpool, 61 points to 75, WG winning the battle for second place behind F-M, who snagged six of the top eight individual spots and won with 21 points.
Not only did Benson qualify for Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet at SUNY-Canton, so did sophomore Grace Craig, who made her way to sixth place in a clocking of 19:42.5.
Benson and Craig are joined on the Section III All-Star squad for the state meet by Rome Free Academy’s Marian Draper, Liverpool’s Abby McNamara and Baldwinsville’s Maizy Ludden.
Behind that pair, WG’s Lindsay Weaver made her way to 14th place in 20:21.2. Maria Matkoski, finishing 23rd in 21:12 flat, led a pack that included eighth-grader Kendall Dombroske (21:16.3) in 24th place and Elise Dunshee (21:28.1) in 25th place. Sarah Ferranti finished 34th, in 22:10.2, with Rachel Flynn getting to 35th place in 22:12 flat.
In the boys sectional Class A meet at VVS, West Genesee, with 123 points, edged out Baldwinsville (129 points) for third place, well behind F-M (24 points) and Liverpool (45 points), the top two-ranked teams in the state, though only the Hornets advance to the state meet.
Will Randall would, like Benson and Craig, earn a berth at Canton. The Wildcats senior tore through the VVS course in 16 minutes, 22.4 seconds, finishing seventh, but third among runners outside of F-M, so he joins the Liverpool trio of Ben Petrella, Connor Buck and Dylan McCarthy, plus Utica Proctor’s Zackaria Adam, on the sectional All-Star team.
It was David Leff finishing just outside of the state qualifying picture, getting 10th place in 16:36 flat. Logan McAnulty claimed 35th place, in 18:12.8, while Sean Byrnes finished 40th in 18:20.9. Brendan McMahon (18:37.3), Ryan Dunning (18:37.7) and Kyle Jenkins (18:52.3) were close behind.
