All season long, the Liverpool boys cross country team knew how good it was, that it ranked among the best squads in the United States.
Then, in the biggest meet of their careers, the Warriors went out and proved it.
Given an at-large entry into last Saturday’s Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, Liverpool did more than just show up for the occasion. It went out and beat most of the teams in the elite field of 22, rising all the way to fourth place.
The Warriors picked up 191 points, edging out American Park (Utah), who had 195 points, for that fourth spot, and not far behind third-place North Spokane (Washington), who had 178 points, and second-place Wayzata (Minnesota), who picked up 159 points.
And all of them ended up chasing Fayetteville-Manlius, who won its first national championship with 111 points, completing a Hornets sweep of the Nike Nationals as the girls Hornets won for the eighth time in nine years.
Within this race, there lay an individual battle, too, and to his great credit, Liverpool junior Ben Petrella finally was able to finish ahead of his F-M nemesis, two-time state champion Bryce Millar.
Petrella finished 19th in a time of 15 minutes, 44 seconds as Millar finished in 16 minutes flat, though Petrella did trail Millar’s teammate, Peter Ryan, who gained 15th place in 15:40. Overall, Petrella was 10th among team runners as North Spokane’s Tanner Anderson won in 15:11.
Meanwhile, senior Dan Muldoon got to 25th among team runners (56th overall) in a clocking of 16:12. Just behind him, fellow senior Dylan McCarthy got to 32nd place in the team event (64th overall) with his time of 16:15.
The youngest member of Liverpool’s seven-man unit, sophomore Ty Brownlow, was 43rd in the team race (79th overall) in 16:21, with senior Connor Buck posting 16:43 in his final high-school cross country race. Junior Ryan Comstock had a time of 16:48 and senior Nick LeClair had a time of 17:05.
Liverpool’s prospects for getting back to the Nike Nationals in 2015 will hinge on how a group of new runners will fill the void left by Muldoon, McCarthy, Buck and LeClair. Petrella, Brownlow and Comstock return, and F-M loses five of its top seven, so the battles will continue next fall.
