Kai Soderberg and Julia Willcox each had individual race victories for the Skaneateles cross country teams in last Wednesday’s meet against the Solvay Bearcats.
All told, the Lakers had nine of the top 10 boys finishers in an 18-50 victory, starting with Kai Soderberg, who raced to victory in 17 minutes, 49 seconds, more than half a minute ahead of teammate Steve Ciaccio, who was second in 18:20.
Starting with Dominic Grasso’s fourth-place time of 19:33, the Lakers had a string of solid finishes. Steve Niebuhr, in fifth place in 19:36, was close behind Grasso, as was Joey Brillo (19:37) in sixth place. Joe Capozza, in 19:48, beat out Nick Paciorek (19:54) for seventh place, with Calvin Blackwell ninth in 19:56 and Alex Wulff finishing 10th in 20:14.
Moving to the girls race, Willcox posted a time of 20 minutes, 42 seconds, pulling away from Solvay’s Jordyn Willsey (21:25) to claim first place.
Finan Malcolm got to third place, finishing in 21:50, exactly a minute ahead of teammate Morgan Dodds, who was fourth in 22:50. Jillian Van Leer finished sixth in 25:07.
Skaneateles went from there to competing in Saturday’s 64th annual Baldwinsville Invitational. As part of the Small School division, the Lakers did quite well, finishing seventh out of 21 teams with 172 points, not far from Cazenovia (143 points) in the runner-up spot, and just behind peers like Marcellus (164 points) and Homer (170 points) in the fifth and sixth spots, respectively. Trumansburg won with 69 points.
Willcox made it all the way to eighth place in 19:33.7 as Jordan-Elbridge’s Abby Gugel won in 17:51.5. Malcolm took 21st place in 20:25.1, two spots ahead of Natalie Condon (20:33.1) in 23rd place. Morgan Dodds was 59th in 21:48.6 and Van Leer (23:08.0) was further back.
In the boys Small School race at B’ville, the Lakers finished 16th out or 24 teams and saw Soderberg rise all the way to 16th place in the individual race in 16:43.8. Joey Brillo was 82nd, in 18:04.1, with Niebuhr (18:45.2), Wulff (18:52.0), Steve Ciaccio (19:01.1), Capozza (19:17.1) and Grasso (19:28.1) further back.
