Having won races throughout the fall, it only figured that Skaneateles girls cross country runners Kaitlyn Neal would prevail again during Saturday’s Section III Class C championship meet at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill.
Even as the state Class C no. 6-ranked Lakers could only manage a third-place finish behind Westhill-Bishop Ludden and Cazenovia, Neal again left the rest of the field behind her.
Cold, windy conditions prevailed at VVS, and Neal knew she had lots of terrific challengers ready to push her. Still, over the course of 3.1 miles, Neal proved best, crossing the finish line in 19 minutes, 30.5 seconds, exactly eight seconds ahead of Westhill-Ludden’s Genny Corcoran (19:38.5) in second place.
A strong Section III All-Star team will make their way to next Saturday’s state meet at SUNY-Canton. It includes Neal, Clara Bowles (Cazenovia), Abby Gugel (Jordan-Elbridge), Rachel Bargabos (Canastota) and Meghann Tanner (Adirondack). Neal finished second in the state Class C meet at Queensbury a year ago.
On the team side, Westhill-Ludden, no. 3 in the state Class C rankings, won with 46 points, but Cazenovia, with 87 points, also managed to get ahead of Skaneateles, who took third with 107 points.
Liz Dwyer took 14th place in a time of 21:38.9. Fellow senior Finan Malcolm made her way to 29th place in 22:51.1, while freshman Natalie Condon got to 40th place in 23:45.3. Jillian Van Leer, in 46th place (24:22.0), roundeed out the scoring column, just ahead of Elsa Soderberg (24:41.5) and Makena Gorman (25:19.1) at the line.
Meanwhile, in the boys sectional Class C race at VVS, Skaneateles finished 11th out of 17 teams, picking up 308 points. Adirondack (48 points) held off Holland Patent (66 points) for the team sectional title.
Cooper Watt got close to qualifying for the state meet. Watt, a senior, finished in 18 minutes, 17.8 seconds, taking 11th place, but ninth among the individuals outside the winning team (Adirondack), so he missed the state meet by four spots.
Freshman Kai Soderberg would make his way to 53rd place, in 19:47.7. Further back, Max Hall posted a time of 20:34.2, four spots ahead of Alex Wulff (20:42.1), with Dominic Grasso finishing in 21:38.2, just ahead of Alex Vanriper (21:50.2), Joe Benedict (22;21.4) and Dan Haro (22:52.5).
