A season spent in the national rankings, but in the long shadow of a local powerhouse, will end for the Liverpool boys cross country team in the one place it wanted to get to all along.
The Warriors are on its way to Portland, Oregon, for this Saturday’s Nike Cross Nationals after an impressive third-place showing in last Saturday’s New York Regional Championships at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls.
Since it could not compete under its high school banner, Liverpool donned itself “The Warriors” and faced off against state Class A champion Fayetteville-Manlius (Manlius XC Club) and Federation champion St. Anthony’s, who ran as Assisi XC.
The Warriors went into the race with some confidence, having won the 2013 edition of the Federation meet on this same Bowdoin Park course, so nothing surprised them. But it also knew that only the top two finishers were guaranteed a trip to the Nike Nationals.
Knowing this, Liverpool went all-out from the start, and while it couldn’t quite keep up with F-M and St. Anthony’s, it stayed close, and that would prove valuable.
When the final results were tallied, the Warriors had 96 points, not far from St. Anthony’s runner-up total of 88 points, while F-M won with 72 points and saw its star senior, Bryce Millar, take the individual race in 15 minutes, 48.8 seconds.
Even with that third-place finish, the Warriors showed more than enough strength to garner an at-large invitation to the Nike Nationals, which it gladly accepted.
Ben Petrella led the way for Liverpool, getting to eighth place among team runners, and 10th overall, in a clocking of 16:13 flat. Connor Buck, in exactly 16:26, was 13 seconds behind, getting 16th place on the team side and 19th overall.
Just behind Petrella and Buck, Dylan McCarthy went 16:36.1 and finished 22nd, but 19th on the team side. Dan Muldoon took 24th place in the team standings (32nd overall) in 16:45.2 and Ty Brownlow, by posting 16:53.2, got to 29th place in the team race, and 39th overall.
Closing out the Warriors’ slate, Nick LeClair finished 54th (41st team) in a time of 17:14.3, with Ryan Comstock earning 60th place (46th team) with his time of 17:17.8.
The Nike Nationals will be an appropriate ending for a Liverpool team that includes four seniors – Buck, McCarthy, Muldoon and LeClair.
The boys race, held at Portland’s Glendoveer Golf Course, is run at 2:35 (11:35 a.m. Pacific Standard Time), this after the girls race (where F-M looks to regain the national title after its seven-year win streak was halted in 2013) is contested at 1:05 p.m. (10:05 a.m. PST).
