Never before had the Liverpool boys cross country team experienced the kind of recognition that it received during the 2014 season.
The Warriors made it all the way to the Nike Cross Nationals last December in Portland, Oregon, and finished fourth in that event, with Fayetteville-Manlius one of the sides in front of them.
Seeing how far it could go, Liverpool quickly set its sights on 2015, knowing that it returned several top runners, including Ben Petrella, Ryan Comstock and Ty Brownlow, though other stars, including Dylan McCarthy, Dan Muldoon, Connor Buck and Nick LeClair, graduated.
The old and new Warriors had their first large-scale race together last Saturday at the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Invitational, held on the same course that will host the Section III championships in early November.
Making an early statement to F-M (who won Varsity Race 2 with ease), Liverpool claimed Race 1 with 22 points, routing 16 other sides as Tully, with 134 points, was far back in second place.
Of the top 30 finishers, 11 came from Liverpool, led by Petrella, who posted the fastest time in any of the four boys races at VVS, finishing in 15 minutes, 58.2 seconds.
That was nearly a full minute ahead of Brownlow, who got second place in 16:50.3, as Stevie Schultz, with his time of 16:59.3, completed a 1-2-3 Warriors sweep at the top.
It didn’t stop there, either, as Terrell Coleman made his way to fifth place in 17:13.5. Gabe Albert was 11th, in 18:39.3, while Collin Gwilt took 13th place in 18:44.7. Julio Roman was 16th (18:47.6) and Dan Hunt 17th (18:48.1) in front of Justin Blowers (18:59.3) in 19th place. Cullen McLaughlin was 24th, in 19:04 flat, and Eli Barbour (19:15.3) gained 29th place.
Earlier that day, Liverpool’s girls team nearly earned its own win in Race 1, but with 71 points took second place behind defending state Class D champion Tully, who won with 67 points.
Warriors senior Juliana Basla took third place in 20:15.4 as Tully’s Ashleigh Crawford won the race in 19:45.6 and her teammate, Ellen Jaworski, finished fourth.
Liverpool’s Morgan Chewning-Kulick was eighth, in 21:19.7, with Vanessa Eberhard 10th in 21:29.8, but Tully held on because no other Warriors runner reached the top 10, Jillian Stagnitta doing best as she was 24th in 22:47.1. Windsor Ardner got to 30th place in 23:02.7, with Natalie Kurz (23:16.3) and Mallory Woytowicz (23:47.7) close behind.
Cicero-North Syracuse, who had swept the South Jefferson Invitational on Sept. 5, could not quite repeat that success at VVS, though the girls Northstars dominated Race 3, its total of 27 points well clear of Central Square (88 points) and nine other challengers.
Jilliann Norris finished second in 20:48.1, with Rome Free Academy’s Marian Draper prevailing in 20:29.6, but C-NS pulled away by placing five runners in the top 10.
Just behind Norris, Annia Marullo was third, in 21:00.8. Mia Pestle took fifth place in 21:37.2 as Emily Dembkowski gained eighth place (21:50.6) and Sarah Davis was 10th in 22:09.4. Julia Rupp made it to 17th place (23:10.4), three spots ahead of Molly Camire (23:35) in 20th place.
In the boys race, C-NS has 73 points, but Marcellus prevailed with 66 points, the Mustangs getting three runners ahead of the Northstars’ top finisher, Joe Tricarico, who was 10th in 18:12.9.
David Ware helped out, getting to 12th place in 18:14.9, while Nathan Poirier was 14th in 18:17.5. Brandon Martin got to 17th place (18:25.1) and John Perperian took 20th place in 18:33.8.
